


Respites Never Last

by DarkAkumaHunter



Series: Winchester State of Mind [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Crowley sass, Demon Deals, Demonic Death Eaters, Harry/Crowley bromance, Horcruxes, Let's kill Voldemort, M/M, Pre-Season 1, Pre-Slash, eventual slash, like so slow I nearly forgot about it entirely, slight AU, some canon deaths, super slow build relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-14
Updated: 2015-03-25
Packaged: 2018-01-15 16:37:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 33
Words: 100,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1311745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkAkumaHunter/pseuds/DarkAkumaHunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life was bad enough before demons invaded Voldemort's ranks. It stood to reason that once Harry dipped his foot into that other world that it would never truly relinquish its grasp.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Possession?

**Author's Note:**

> There might be a couple of typos I've missed. DAH.

**Chapter One - Possession?**

_November 12th 1996:_

Harry froze, staring straight into the pitch black eyes of Dragomir Rustok. Other battles raged around them, but all Harry could focus on was the Death Eater in front of him. But he wasn't a Death Eater, was he? His shirt was sleeveless and his skin was reasonably unblemished; there was no skull marring the pale skin of his forearm. Less than a second ago Dragomir's eyes had been blue, and Harry had certainly been able to see the whites of his eyes, because they were actually white! But there was something so much darker in those black eyes than Dragomir had ever managed to conjure up in their previous confrontations – although confrontation might not have been the best word for it. Until now Harry had never come across Dragomir during any of the skirmishes with Death Eaters. New recruits were hardly an unusual thing, what with the state of the community at the moment, but Dragomir had never shown the slightest inclination to join either side of the war in all the time Harry had known him. In fact, he barely associated with the Wizarding World at all. The man ran a bloody bookstore not far from Privet Drive in Little Whinging!

Harry narrowed his eyes and took half a step back, gathering his magic around him, letting it taste the air. It was a habit he had gotten in to as the war continued to escalate – it was impossible to replicate someone's magical signature, the flavour of their magic, so it allowed him a silent, unobtrusive way to check for imposters. The Mad-Eye Moody/Barty Crouch Junior thing had really set him on edge about how easily people impersonated others in the magical world. When he first met Dragomir in the summer before his fifth year he had been surprised to see that the man even had a magical core. He was a pureblood who had chosen to live as a muggle. Sending out tendrils of his magic he enveloped Dragomir in it. Immediately his magic lashed out, violently, and the black eyes sparkled knowingly, amused. His core was the same, sure, but it was absolutely drenched in the most repulsive thing Harry had ever had the misfortune to come into contact with. It was a thousand, a hundred thousand times fouler than a core controlled by the imperius curse. It was a full-blown possession, but for the life of him Harry couldn't think of what would have that kind of power.

Someone screamed his name, but Harry ignored it, even as a stray spell ruffled his hair. The green light momentarily distracted him, seeing how close to death he had once again found himself, but he couldn't bring himself to look away from the black eyes for long. It was strange, how the  _thing_  in Dragomir didn't seem in any way inclined to attack him. In fact, it seemed content to watch Harry struggle to comprehend the situation. Emerald eyes narrowed and Harry frowned, committing the feel that possession gave off to memory. Black eyes wasn't much to go on, but he  _would_  find out what was doing it, because it was working for Voldemort and needed to be destroyed, one way or another.

The sounds of battle died away and the pair turned away as one for a quick glance of the battlefield. The Death Eaters were either dead, immobilised through spells or injury, or had disapparated. None of the Order were dead, not that he could tell anyway, but he wasn't entirely sure if he would care either way. Most of the members of the Order he now knew had stood by and watched while he nearly died year after year, and a large majority of them had higher education or training. Wasn't he supposed to save their asses?

'Dragomir' smirked and leaned close, breath tickling the shell of Harry's ear. "See you 'round, meat bag," he whispered, before pulling back and disappearing in the blink of an eye. Harry stood there, confused, but he guessed it wasn't so unbelievable that the possesser could utilise Dragomir's magical core. But 'meat bag'? What the hell was that supposed to mean?!

A hand landing on his shoulder jerked Harry out of his thoughts, and he spun to face them with a glare on his face. Tonks reared back as though burnt, hair fading to brown at the fierce look on the Boy-Who-Lived's face. Somewhat satisfied with the reaction he got Harry let his glare linger for a moment before dropping it with a sigh.

"I'm supposed to take you back to Grimmauld Place..." Tonks offered up hesitantly in explanation for grabbing him. It was absolutely ridiculous that they wouldn't teach him how to apparate. Their excuse was that it was against the law, that he was still too young, but with the ministry quickly falling to the Dark Forces did the trivial laws like apparition age really matter? Others said it was the Trace they were worried about, but Harry had read plenty of books that stated clearly that wandless magic was nigh-on untraceable, unless you used your magic like Harry did to seek out other magical signatures, and it seemed that absolutely no-one else had ever thought to do so. Apparation was possible without a wand, highly possible in fact, but magical folk had become too reliant on using a focus over the years to want to risk it. With all the books he had been scouring since Sirius's death he had learned an awful lot about magic and the way it worked, and it appalled him to realise how truly backwards their society was. It wasn't even just the way they dressed and the lack of technology and knowledge of the modern muggle world, it was the use of magic.

"Fine," Harry responded absently, already wondering what sort of books he should begin with to conduct his research into the black eyed creature. Shrugging, Tonks gripped his forearm tightly and spun on the spot, forcing Harry to momentarily experience the gut-wrenching sensation of being forced through a tube. Apparation via a focus was so much more uncomfortable than the descriptions he had found in an obscure magical text describing natural magic. Harry shook his head distractedly as he righted himself from the awkward landing. It wouldn't do for him to constantly dwell on what he felt were the short-comings of society. If he became too fixated on it he might just let Voldemort take over the Wizarding World, then the rebels and the Dark Forces would kill each other and there would be no-one left to ostracise him when they found out what he wanted to do with his own magic. Not that it was really any of their business, but they would  _make_  it their business.

Ignoring Tonks, not really caring about how anxious he was probably making her, he walked up to Number 12 and let himself in. While he had been planning on going straight up to his room, Sirius's old room, he was accosted in the gloomy entranceway by Remus Lupin. The werewolf appeared stressed, or rather, more stressed than usual.

"Harry," he called out softly, as though afraid of startling the teen, "Professor Dumbledore would like to speak with you in the kitchen." Rolling his eyes Harry wiped his dirty hands on the robes the Order insisted he wear on raids before gesturing for Remus to lead the way, despite knowing perfectly well by now where the kitchen was. Remus wrung his hands tiredly before relenting, heading back down to the grimy kitchen.

Headmaster Dumbledore was seated at the head of the table, clad in one of his signature burn-your-eyes-out-bright robes. Harry suppressed a shudder at the sight and stood calmly at the other end of the table, hands hanging by his sides rather than behind his back like some of the no-name Order members hovering around the room.

"Harry, my boy," Harry narrowed his eyes in displeasure at the endearment. Hadn't he made it clear that he no longer appreciated the way the Headmaster treated him? "It pains me to say this,"  _no it doesn't,_  Harry thought bitterly, "But I think it would be for the best if you didn't accompany the Order on any more raids." Harry froze, fury racing through his veins. How dare they? How  _dare_  they?!

"Under what reasoning?" Harry asked blankly, his voice emotionless as he tried to reign in his anger. It wouldn't do to blow up at the Headmaster again, not when he was already so wound up.

"Dear boy, you obviously aren't ready for proper combat yet. Staring down Death Eaters is hardly an efficient way to defeat the enemy." Someone snickered and Harry shot them a furious glare, clenching his fists.

" _Fine!_ " Harry spat, spinning on his heel and racing up the rickety staircase, barricading himself in his room. Thanks to some handy spells the Goblins at Gringotts had taught him the room was soon warded to an extent that only either Bill or Dumbledore could break in; Bill because of his own training from the Goblins, and Dumbledore through brute magical force. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that, but as things were Harry didn't plan on going back to Hogwarts any time soon, not when he had so much to do, things that were real world important rather than learning stupid household spells in Charms and Transfiguration. If they thought they could stop him from doing his god-damned  _duty_  then they were sadly mistaken.

Belatedly Harry realised he would have to purchase new books for his new research task, which meant he would have to venture out of the house, perhaps to an internet café. Another thing he had learned – it wasn't magic itself that affected electronics, there were specific types of wards that scrambled them. Wards like those at Hogwarts and Grimmauld Place.

* * *

_Two Months Later:_

Ever since that fateful raid Harry had locked himself up in Sirius's old room, only eating food forced upon him by the hyper-active house-elf Dobby, whom he had allowed through the wards on the room, and leaving only to use the bathroom. A week after his self-imposed imprisonment a crate-full of magical texts on mythology and lore turned up at Number 12, which many an Order member attempted to open, but failed as Harry had specifically requested such a pre-emptive measure from the Goblins, which they had been only too happy to comply with (thievery was a crime far worse than murder in their minds, and it helped that it was noted that the protection would piss off several other wizards). After a lengthy and informative visit with the Goblins during the Summer of Fourth Year before the Weasley's arrived he had read up on Goblin etiquette, something which they hadn't expected, and now a fair number of them truly respected him, hence all the favours.

A month after that a series of packages of rare, obscure and discontinued muggle texts arrived, via Gringotts, with the same protections.

Harry's friends had tried countless times to encourage him to leave the room and come back to school. Hermione, upon learning what it was he was doing – he had felt the need to explain himself to her in the hopes that she, as a rather obsessive studier, would understand - had left frustrated, thought on it for a week, then returned the next weekend with a magically expanding notebook. If he was going to hole himself up and study for the rest of his life then she decided she may as well be supportive, even if it tore her up inside seeing him like that.

Harry, on the other hand, was furious. None of the magical texts had any leads whatsoever as to the mysterious possesser. It would have been  _so_  much easier if they creature had been magical in origin. So he had hit the muggle books, but they were barely any better. Black eyes really wasn't much to go on, when he stopped to think about it, but it was important to him that he get to the bottom of it all.

At one point he had been about ready to throw the  _Anthology of Nordic Spirits_  out the window, and that was an extremely rare book that had cost him a fair bit to acquire. He had to calm himself, reminding himself that just because it wasn't useful in this hunt – and when had he started calling it a hunt? – didn't mean that it wouldn't still be an invaluable resource at some other point in time.

It had gotten to the point where Harry was so fed up with it all that he actually started reading the Old Testament. He'd never been much for religion; as a child it was because of the way his family treated him, and as a teen it was because of his magic. The whole Judeo-Christian thing didn't really look too kindly on magic users after all. It was on a whim really; he had purchased it along with a series of other books on mythology, because he wasn't really sure what other sorts of things would classify as Christian mythology, and decided to read it in order to take a break from the tedious study he had been doing. He certainly hadn't expected to actually find anything in it.

"Hell," Harry mumbled softly as he caressed the book with a finger, "A creature from Hell. Why do I get the feeling that Dragomir was possessed by a Demon? Of course it has to be something I have no idea how to kill, it couldn't just be some lowly vengeful spirit that I could have had exorcised..." It was a stab in the dark really – nowhere had it actually mentioned black eyes as a sign of possession – but Harry had always had the worst luck, and so deep down he knew it had to be a demon.

"Actually, why didn't I think of that earlier?" He wondered, closing the worn copy of the Old Testament and placing it on the desk. From a muggle standpoint, that should have been the very first thing to cross his mind. Demonic possessions were some of the only sorts of possession that muggles knew anything about.

"Damnit!" Harry kicked the desk in frustration, cursing violently when he smacked his toe.

He could not deal with demons.

Not from Grimmauld Place.

Not with magic.

Not without knowledge that he knew he was incapable of getting where he was.

He would have to go and seek out the professionals.


	2. Father Anderson

**Chapter 2 – Father Anderson:**

_Two Weeks Later, Surrey:_

Harry stood in the park across the road from the church, contemplating his next move. It had taken a lot of effort to get out from under the noses of the Order of the bloody Phoenix. He swore some of them were waiting for him to die up there in his room. This was the second day in a row he had sneaked away with the aid of Dobby. Yesterday he had gone on a shopping trip in order to replace all of the clothes he owned with things that actually fit – most of them were muggle. Today, he was outside a church in the outskirts of Surrey.

He remembered that, as a much younger child, he had once stumbled across this particular church after being 'temporarily' abandoned again by the Dursleys. He had sought shelter inside, not sure what to expect, having never been inside a church before. There was a priest whom he had encountered who, now that he thought back on it, exuded a bright aura, an overly bright aura for a muggle, and there was a deeper knowledge in his eyes. Harry figured that this priest was his best bet at finding answers for his demon problem, but he hadn't yet been able to bring himself to cross the street. A part of him felt ashamed, embarrassed even, about the circumstances under which he had originally met with the young man. He wasn't sure what he preferred; for the priest to not remember him, or to find that he did.

To be honest, Harry felt silly. He had been standing in the park, hidden in the shade of a large tree, for over an hour. People walking down the street gave him strange looks, and he knew it was because of his loitering, as he was wearing very normal, well-fitting clothes.

Taking a deep breath, Harry straightened the hem of his button-up shirt and stepped out into the sunlight. Despite part of his mind begging him to turn away he crossed the street, albeit slowly and hesitantly, until he stood before the church. It seemed a lot smaller this time around, but he supposed that was to be expected seeing as he wasn't that small any more. Steeling himself, he pushed open one of the doors and slipped inside.

The place was empty of any church-goers, which he had expected, seeing as it was lunchtime on a Wednesday. A very young man, not much older than himself, Harry estimated, was sweeping around the altar. Feeling slightly awkward Harry cleared his throat, announcing his presence to the man. Immediately he paused, glancing over his shoulder towards the door and Harry, before setting the broom to one side and heading over with a warm smile on his face.

"Good afternoon, is there something I can help you with?" He asked, brushing a hand through sandy blond hair as he tilted his head slightly, observing Harry. Harry shifted his weight on his feet and clasped the strap of his bag tightly in one hand.

"Um, yes. Is, uh... Is Eric Anderson here?" Harry nervously tugged his fringe down over his forehead. Despite being in a muggle area it always paid to stay alert, you never knew who might know about their world.

"Father Anderson?" Harry nodded, not having the slightest clue what title the man might hold. "Yes, he is in his office out the back. Would you like me to take you there?"

"Ah, yes please, thank you." Harry silently cursed himself as he tripped over his words. His nerves were going haywire. This was his best chance, but what if it ended up being a dead-end? Where would he go from there? He had it on good authority that there might just be a few demons over in America, and people to deal with them, but how would that help? He couldn't exactly jump ship and head on over there, not when there was a war to be fought.

"Father," Harry jerked slightly at the sound of the young priest's voice, having been following the man on autopilot without really taking in his surroundings. "There's someone here to speak with you."

"Send them in." Yep, Harry knew that voice. Good to know he hadn't made an awkward stuff-up and found someone else who just so happened to have the same name in the same church... Okay, so he knew he was being a tad dramatic, but the fear had been there all the same. The priest – it would be so much easier if he knew the man's name, less awkward in his mind – nodded politely and gave him another bright smile before heading back the way they had come, probably to return to his cleaning. Scuffing his feet on the floor Harry shook his head and stepped inside the office, closing the door softly behind him.

Inside, seated at the single desk, sat a middle-aged man with reddish-brown close cut hair, a book held limply in his hand. Obviously the man hadn't exactly been expecting any visitors. Harry drew himself out of his slouch and stared at the wall behind Eric in order to avoid looking straight into those piercing eyes of his that, when Harry was younger, he swore could see into his soul.

"Well then young man, what can I do for you?" Father Anderson asked lightly, trying and failing to catch Harry's eye.

"I doubt you remember me," Harry began softly, eyes glazing over slightly as he remembered that day, "We met once, quite a few years ago. My name is Harry Potter and-"

Father Anderson's face lit up in recognition and he cut in anxiously. "Your Uncle, he hasn't been going around abandoning you in strange places again has he?" Harry stiffened, eyes cold, as he instinctively shut himself off. Whenever his life at the Dursleys was brought up he would close himself off, for he was ashamed of the way his life had gone and did not like other people knowing about it. It was hard enough remembering that Father Anderson already  _did_  know about it.

"That is neither here nor there Father, at 16 he really doesn't benefit any from trying such petty things."  _Now that I'm getting training for my magic he's terrified in a whole different way to when he was trying to get rid of me. Now he can't risk it, not with all the death threats he's received from various magical folk._  "I'm in trouble, and I think you can help me." Harry took a deep breath and forced himself to meet Eric's eyes, letting down his barriers and allowing the priest to see the echoes of the horrors he had bore witness to.

A disbelieving gasp ripped from Eric's lips before he steeled himself, face morphing into a much more serious expression than what he had previously shown. He nodded his head once and gestured for Harry to take a seat. They needed to have a long talk about a lot of things, but the Father wasn't naïve enough to believe that he would be told about any of the things that had been the causes of the pain and suffering in those hard emerald eyes.

"I would ask if you had been caught stealing or something, but I can tell that it's something much different than petty crime. How do you think I can help?" Father Anderson placed his book on the edge of his desk and leaned back in his chair, unwilling to lean forward and crowd the obviously nervous teen before him. Harry breathed out heavily and opened his shoulder bag, pulling out two notebooks. One was the magically expanding notebook from Hermione – that was where he kept important notes about anything and everything he had come across during his search for answers – and a smaller, muggle notebook, which was filled with drawings and notes regarding Dragomir and demons. He held them carefully in his lap, staring down at the worn covers.

"First thing's first, have you seen the owner of  _Broken Pieces_ , Dragomir Rustok, lately?" Harry could tell the man was confused. After all, what relevance to his problems could the owner of a cosy second-hand bookstore possibly have? Despite the obvious confusion Harry chose not to elaborate, sitting silently and waiting for an answer.

"No, I can't say I have. Actually, now that you mention it, he used to come to the church once a week without fail – not for mass, I don't think he was really all that comfortable around large groups of people, but he came all the same – but he hasn't been in months. Why, has something happened to him?" Eric rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth in thought. What could this kid – a kid who had, for all intents and purposes, disappeared off the face of the planet – know about Dragomir that no-one else did?

"That doesn't really surprise me." Harry admitted, fingering the cover of his muggle notebook. "I, ah, ran into him-" Eric could sense a complex story behind that statement, but pushed that thought to the side for the time being, "- just shy of three months ago. He was certainly not acting like himself." Harry had wondered for a long time how to go about describing the differences without bringing magic into the picture, and had decided on simply using the book and answering other questions. "Dragomir was acting rather malicious, but that isn't the part that worried me. Everyone has bad days, some worse so than others. It was his eyes that set off alarm bells. His eyes were black. Completely so." Shifting in his seat Harry placed his notebook on the desk and pushed it towards Father Anderson. There was a hard look in the Father's eyes, and Harry knew that he knew at least some of what he was talking about without even reading the notebook, but he picked it up and flicked through it anyway.

Harry watched nervously, biting his bottom lip, as Eric read through his muddled conspiracies and thoughts. They weren't organised in the slightest, but that didn't seem to matter, as the man appeared to be absorbing everything that was written with a contemplative expression that refused to disappear.

"Demons..." Eric sighed, dragging his hand across the stubble that littered his chin. Harry immediately straightened in his seat and watched as he hung his head and buried his face in his hands. "I'd heard whispers, from the States, about things like this. No-one ever said demon, but I can't really find any reason not to believe you. You're a good person Harry, I can sense it, and whatever... crap... you've been through, and I know you've seen a lot of bad, I don't reckon you'd go around accusing people of this sort of thing without any level of certainty." He looked through his fingers at Harry, taking in his tense posture.

"I understand if you don't want to help me," Harry whispered softly, finger running up and down the spine of his journal.

"I didn't say that," Eric denied, shaking his head. Taking a breath to centre himself he pushed himself up straight and began rummaging around in one of the draws behind his desk. "That said, I don't know anything practical about demons, so I doubt I will be of all that much help, but I will try." Making a small noise of triumph he sat up again, an old, dusty book clenched carefully in his hands. "This is a book of exorcisms that I stumbled across when cleaning out the basement of the church. I have no idea how long it had been down there for, but for some reason I didn't feel like throwing it away, so instead I locked it up in my office. Now, if you exorcise the demon from Dragomir's body, do you think he would still be alive?"

Harry frowned thoughtfully, brow creased. He himself had been possessed briefly by Voldemort, and the pain had been agonising. Even if the possession was different, Harry didn't like to imagine what sort of damage three months of that would wreak on Dragomir's mental state. Even if it was painless, he would have spent months watching, helpless, as his body was used to kill, maim and torture – because demons love that sort of thing and working for Voldemort was really just looking like an excuse to Harry right about now – and from his visions alone Harry knew that that was never a pleasant thing to go through.

"I have absolutely no idea whether or not his body would still be properly alive, but I doubt he would want to be alive," Harry tugged on a strand of his hair. He wasn't explaining himself very well. "That demon is doing a ton of evil crap with Dragomir's body. It won't be easy to cope with the knowledge that he essentially murdered a whole pile of mug-ah-people," Harry coughed nervously, hoping that Eric didn't mention his slip of the tongue. The clergyman's eyes narrowed thoughtfully for a moment but he remained silent, opting instead to flip through the exorcism book.

Father Anderson stopped almost halfway through the book and carefully turned it around, holding it out to Harry.

"This is the exorcism I feel would be of the most use to you. You might like to copy it out." Reaching into his bag Harry pulled out a ball-point pen – quills were really far too much trouble to bother with – and shuffled his chair closer to the desk, opening his supernatural journal and positioning it next to the ancient text. The exorcism was ridiculously long, a good five pages! Harry could only hope that he would never be in a position where he would have to read out the entire thing. It was just lucky that he had such a good grip on Latin pronunciation from all his spellwork, otherwise he knew he would muck it up horrendously.

Harry was still skeptical though. Sure, an exorcism was all well and good, but what was to stop the demon from turning tail and running once it realised what he was doing? Not to mention he would be terrifyingly vulnerable while chanting...

"I'm not really sure what else I can do to help..." Eric admitted, sitting back in his chair as Harry finished up the exorcism. Harry glanced up at him and sent him what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

"It's fine, really. You've actually helped me a lot simply by believing me. There's a lot of crazy stuff in my life, but I get the feeling my friends wouldn't have believed me about this. They would have said it was the stress getting to me and then beg me to go back to school with them." Harry froze up when he realised what he had said. What was he doing going around telling priests that he was ditching school to study the occult!?

Abruptly Harry shot to his feet, knocking his chair over in the process, and starting hastily shoving his things back into his bag. He couldn't stay any longer, he had said too much as it was, and he needed to get back to Grimmauld Place before anyone noticed he was missing.

"Harry, wait a moment!" Eric called, fumbling in the cupboard behind his desk hurriedly as he watched Harry from the corner of his eye. As soon as his hand wrapped around what he was looking for he spun and threw it to Harry. Only Harry's honed seeker reflexes allowed him to catch the vial, even as he spun in startled shock towards Father Anderson.

"I don't... What?"

Eric smiled weakly. "It's Holy Water. I'm not sure what use it will be, but it doesn't hurt to try."

Emerald eyes blinked slowly at him from behind round glasses. Harry looked between Eric and the vial, before pocketing it with a nod and offering a tentative thanks in return.

Harry left the church that day with a renewed determination. He would destroy that creature no matter what it took. No demon would get the best of the boy who was supposed to save the world.


	3. Rituale Romanum

**Chapter 3 – Rituale Romanum:**

It was many more months before Harry felt prepared enough to confront the demon inside of Dragomir once more.

His personal library now had a rather extensive collection of books relating to demons. Surprisingly, or perhaps not so, considering what he now knew about the man, Snape aided him in acquiring some of the rarer and more valuable tomes. The Professor had barged into his room one evening while Harry was in the bathroom, taken one look at what he was doing, and offered his assistance. Apparently Harry wasn't the only person that demon had pissed off.

Harry was as prepared as he believed he would ever be. After spending an entire month practising how to draw a Devil's Trap – an incredibly useful array he stumbled across in one of the more obscure religious texts – he was certain he could probably draw it in his sleep, not that he could envision any such reason to do so.

Drawing on his semi-proficiency in wandless magic Harry had made the precious vial of Holy Water from Father Anderson unbreakable, and he had charmed the stopper to only allow him to open it by reacting to his unique magical signature.

He also had a knife, a silver knife, which he had acquired from a shady weapon shop in Knocturn Alley while shopping under a complex glamour. It was covered in runes that he didn't understand – they weren't covered in the ancient runes textbook he found lying around the Black Family Library and he couldn't be bothered spending too much time attempting to translate them – and had been blessed by the twitchiest reverend he had ever met. He hadn't felt right trying to make Eric do it for him, so he hunted down the next best holy man, according to his magic anyway.

It was almost terrifying, the strange truce he and Snape had fallen into. In any other situation it might almost be considered comradeship, but Harry knew better than that. What did shock him, however, was when Snape burst into his room one evening – he had long since altered the wards to allow the man inside since he was helping with his research – and demanded to be allowed to accompany him when he finally made his move.

To be honest, Harry still hadn't responded to his request, and he was in the process of setting the scene for their confrontation. Whether through some sort of morbid irony or simply a want to be in a familiar space Harry had chosen Dragomir's bookstore for their battlefield. The back room, not the store-front – Harry didn't  _really_  want all of those books to get destroyed if it could possibly be avoided.

Devil's Traps were scattered everywhere he could think of, on the walls, ceiling and floor. Most of them were hidden, some with magic to hide from the eyes of others that weren't Harry, but several were open to the naked eye. They weren't in highly obvious places, but it would be better for the demon to see one in front of the window and side-step it, getting trapped by the larger ones on the ceiling, than it would be for him to see a small piece of one poking out from under the rug and get instantly suspicious. Harry imagined the demon wouldn't be expecting that sort of thing from him, seeing that on the whole magical people, despite the obvious existence of other 'mythical' creatures, were even more adamant that demons didn't exist than muggles were.

Getting out of Grimmauld Place without Snape noticing turned out to be the hardest part of the whole showdown. The bitter spy had added his own wards to Harry's bedroom, ones that told him when he left and how many people were in the room. There were also anti-apparation wards. Snape may not have truly believed Harry was capable of apparating, but that didn't stop him taking precautions just in case. Under-estimating the enemy – or in this case the stubborn brat he was trying to protect – was never a good idea.

Thankfully, after multiple cases of trial and error, Harry discovered that Snape, like so many other wizards, had overlooked the wonderful magic in the possession of house-elves. Dobby was truly an invaluable asset to the mission, and Harry made a mental note to give the hyper-active elf a few of his odd socks on their return, provided he lived to tell the tale. The stories of demons weren't exactly reassuring, and he wasn't 100% certain that the Devil's Trap would even work.

In an attempt to delay, or even prevent, Snape coming after him, Harry, with the aid of Dobby, created a magical replica of himself. Harry infused the golem with some of his own magic, just enough so that it could send signals to Snape's magic telling it that Harry was still in the room, and crafted it so that it looked fairly like him, at least from behind. It would serve its purpose for if anyone managed to get inside to check on where he was, as long as they didn't expect it to talk back. It would be a long time before he managed to perform voice-response magic.

"Alright then," Harry whispered to himself, dusting his hands on his jeans and checking his pocket for the exorcism. "Come on Dobby, take me to  _Broken Pieces_." The small elf grabbed Harry's hand and with an almost-silent pop they disappeared from Number 12.

 _Broken Pieces_  was a quaint little shop, filled with rare and unusual second-hand books, along with a few other miscellaneous items. Harry knew the place like the back of his hand with all the time he spent there during the holidays. In a way Harry felt immensely guilty for what had happened to Dragomir. Somehow or another a Death Eater must have witnessed them interacting and decided that this would be a wonderful way to get back at him. Dragomir was a Bulgarian pureblood, with no real reason to join Voldemort, so he should have been left in peace. It was Harry's fault they had even realised the poor man was magical.

"Is yous okay Mister Harry Potter sir?" Dobby's voice broke Harry free from his morbid thoughts. Perhaps this wasn't the best place he could have picked for their showdown. Too many memories.

"Yeah, Dobby, I'm fine. You should go back now. Keep an eye on Snape for me." Dobby nodded furiously and in the blink of an eye was gone once more. Harry exhaled slowly and shoved his hand into his pocket, curling his fingers around the knife. The knife was mostly for show, he doubted it was actually capable of injuring the demon, but it made him feel better all the same.

"Okay, what now?"

Harry took to pacing back and forth across the back of the store, clutching Dragomir's key-ring to his chest, trying to summon the demon with his will. It might have seemed like a ridiculous thing to do, but long-range legilimency was hardly a far-fetched notion. He was, however, working on borrowed time. Snape could show up at any moment. Harry wasn't worried about any other members of the Order. They had stopped caring about what he did months ago, shortly after he stopped leaving his room. Apparently he was only worth their concern when he was following orders and attending school. He was learning a lot more by himself than he would have been at school, about both magical and mundane subjects.

Scowling heavily Harry raised his face to the ceiling. "Get your arse in here right now you bloody piece of demonic shit!" He yelled, fisting the keys in one hand and the knife in the other.

A door slammed open and Harry spun, knife raised, in absolute shock. He hadn't actually expected that to work, he had just been getting frustrated. But there he was, black eyes glistening maliciously. The demon had a swagger to his step as he approached Harry that Dragomir had never possessed. Demons, Harry thought to himself, were even more arrogant than pureblood supremacists.

"Well well well," the demon called mockingly, bringing his hands together in a slow clap as he walked, "Little Harry Potter and his magic knife. What are you going to do, poke me?" He began to laugh, but quickly stopped when he realised he could no longer move. Harry let out a breath of relief. The Devil's Trap had worked after all. Never again would he doubt his books.

"What have you done to me?" The demon snarled, eyes smouldering with hatred.

Narrowing his eyes at the demon Harry removed the vial from his pocket and slowly uncorked it, dangling it in the air before him. Black eyes locked onto it and widened slightly before narrowing once more.

"This is your end, demon. You should never have come here." Taking a deep breath Harry threw the Holy Water over the demon. It screamed, an awful, ear-splitting sound. Harry dropped the vial, clamping his hands over his ears and shutting his eyes. That wasn't a sound he wanted to hear again, but it at least proved the usefulness of the Holy Water.

Once the screaming receded to harsh pants Harry lowered his hands and pulled out several sheets of paper, holding them with shaking fingers.

"Deus, et pater Domini nostri Jesu Christi, invoco nomen sanctum tuum, et clementiam tuam supplex exposco..." Harry began chanting the exorcism, quietly at first, but his voice gained strength as he continued and as the demon started reacting to it. He was on the third verse and his throat was beginning to feel strained from overuse – he really hadn't spoken much in the last few months – when the demon let out one last shriek before exploding into a cloud of black smoke. Swallowing nervously Harry abandoned the exorcism and threw his knife into the hovering cloud of smoke, forcing it to disperse.

Dragomir's body hit the floor with a dull thud and, once the demon smoke was gone, Harry rushed into the circle and put a hand on his neck, checking for a pulse. There was nothing.

Choking back an anguished sob Harry lay Dragomir's body down flat on the ground and ran to the phone in his office. It took every ounce of willpower Harry had not to break down and start crying, but he knew he needed to do this. Carefully dialling, making sure he got the number right as he hadn't ever needed to use it before, he rang the police.

"Hello, what seems to be the problem?" Harry closed his eyes and fisted his hand in his shirt.

"There's a, ah... dead body," Harry choked on the word, and had to clear his throat before continuing.

"Where are you?" The calm voice on the other end asked.

"Bookstore.  _Broken Pieces_. It's in Surrey, near Magnolia Crescent."

"Someone will be there as soon as possible."

Before they could tell him to wait on the phone Harry hung up and called out for Dobby, trying to keep the anguish from his voice. Judging by the look Dobby sent him when he arrived Harry wasn't doing a very good job at concealing his emotions, so he simply took Dobby's hand with trembling fingers and held on tight.

That night Harry fell into a restless sleep plagued with nightmares, and when he awoke, spent the rest of the night crying quietly to himself about the sacrifices made by all of the people around him for the sake of a mad-man's war.

He vowed to himself then and there, with blood-shot eyes and tear-stained cheeks, that he would kill Voldemort, not to fulfil a prophecy, but to avenge the lives of people like Dragomir, who should never have been caught up in the war.

 


	4. Crowley

**Chapter 4 – Crowley:**

By the 4th of February 1998 Harry Potter had had more than enough of the war. He was supposed to be their saviour, yet no-one was letting him in on any important details and, more to the point, he  _knew_  Dumbledore was keeping something from him, and from previous experience it was only vital pieces of information that the old man hid away.

Vital pieces of information like the fact that there was a bloody PROPHECY about him. Didn't he deserve to know things like that? It was his life to live, dammit, and they weren't letting him!

If Sirius were still alive he would be fighting for Harry's right to be in the loop. It was one of the things he missed the most about the man, not having had the time to find much else to miss. That was Dumbledore's fault too, Sirius's death. Originally he had blamed Snape, but in the end it was the Headmaster who had had the stupid belief that the two would get along well enough to teach and learn such a complex art.

But no, after months upon months of consequent grieving and trying to wheedle information out of any Order member he could find, Harry had given up. Not on fighting the war, no, but on relying on the Order of the bloody Phoenix for absolutely anything at all.

Today, today Harry had once again sneaked away from Grimmauld Place, but this time there was no-one around to care.

Harry walked briskly towards the crossroads, a small box clasped tightly in his hands. It had taken a good week's research to find a dirt crossroad that wasn't too far from London; most all of them were paved over now. It hadn't been a hard decision to make, once he found out about Crossroads Demons. Forfeiting his own life was such a small price to pay for vengeance. Oh, he wasn't naïve enough to believe that such criminality would cease with Voldemort's demise, but he wasn't trying for world peace, he only wanted vengeance for those killed by the regime of the current Dark Lord.

Admittedly, it was the ingredients for the summoning that had taken the longest to organise. Harry was still a bit queasy about the whole cat bone thing - odd, since he'd used weirder in potions - but demons were demons, so he figured he could deal with it just this once.

Kneeling down in the centre of the crossroads Harry formed a hole with magic in which to place the box – he was, after all, seventeen now, and he had to use his magic for  _something_. He wasn't entirely sure as to what was meant to happen, having only had one experience with any sort of demon before. Shaking his head he climbed to his feet, deciding there was no reason to remain on his knees in the dirt while he waited.

The wait that ensued was silent and felt like an absurdly long time to the young wizard. He entwined his fingers behind his back and rocked on the balls of his feet, wand shoved into the pocket of his jeans.

"Well, this is certainly an interesting development," a voice spoke lightly from behind him. Harry spun around to find himself face to face with a man in a crisp black suit. It wasn't exactly what he had been expecting, but without much of an imagination to draw on his expectations had been pretty non-existent anyway.

"Who are you?" Harry demanded, just to be sure that it was indeed who he thought it was. The man chuckled, and while it was a warm enough, friendly enough sound, it set Harry on edge.  _Yeah, that sounds like a demon_.

"I'm the answer to your prayers, luv." Harry rolled his eyes at the demon. Prayers, right. More like the darkest desires of his soul. "So what can I do for you this fine night, aye? Money, love, talent?"

"I don't want anything trivial like that. What I need is help." Harry drew himself up to his full, not-very-impressive height and looked straight into the demon's eyes. "What do you know of magic? Real magic, not the sort your demon buddies offer up."

"Magic-users aye? Down in Hell that's just a myth."

"Really?" Harry paused, digesting that little piece of information. Apparently the magical world really  _was_  secluded from the rest of the world. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, demons are even less than myth where I come from. It was bloody hard, in the beginning, trying to get anywhere with that sort of research." He wasn't sure if he was trying, for some strange reason, to reassure the demon, or if he was just participating in an exchange of information.

"Well now, I'm going to have to look into that. I'm missing out on a whole species of possible customers..." Harry bristled, eyes narrowing behind his glasses. He wasn't sure he liked being referred to as a whole other species.

"That's not why I called you here demon."

"Crowley. The name's Crowley, luv. You mentioned help. What sort of help you looking for?" Crowley dragged his gaze up and down Harry's malnourished form, hands in the pockets of his suit-jacket as he watched the young wizard squirm.

"I need your help to kill a wizard known as Voldemort. His birth name is Tom Marvolo Riddle. I wouldn't ask, but I can tell there's something off about him, or he would have died a long time ago," Harry trailed off some at the end, still trying to mull it over for himself as to how the dark wizard managed to stave off death so easily.

"Kill a wizard aye? I get the feeling I'm going to have to do some research into this, aren't I." Crowley shook his head, attempting a put-upon expression that was ruined by his relaxed stance. In all honesty, he was intrigued. Either way he'd be getting some solid information that none of the other demons had access to.

"There's a man, Albus Dumbledore," it was pretty hard to miss the malice in Harry's voice when he spat the name, "I'm pretty sure he knows a lot about what's going on, but he refuses to let me in on the secret."

"Okay, so let me get this straight. Basically, you want me to help you obtain the means to kill this Voldemort person?" At Harry's nod he continued, "Well, standard procedure and all that puts the price for any sort of deal at your soul in 10 years, but I get the feeling you already knew that." Harry's silence seemed to speak volumes to Crowley, because he nodded to himself and started walking around the teen as he spoke. "However, I can't shake the niggling feeling in the back of my mind that everything's going to go to Hell, excuse the pun, and you could turn out to be a rather important asset, young mister wizard." Crowley tapped his finger on his chin as he pondered something that only he could understand.

Now even a child would know that having a demon take an interest in you was a very bad thing; Harry was no exception. The difference between Harry and everyone else however, was that he knew very well that all sorts of crap could amount from this, but he didn't care. Whatever Crowley wanted he knew he would agree to it, without question, because he was 100% committed to destroying the Dark Lord whom murdered his parents and friends. There would be no stopping his revenge.

"Well? Are we making a deal or not?" Harry demanded, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. If  _Crowley_  backed out, there was nothing he could do. He would have to make do on his own, but he didn't want that. He knew it would be damn near impossible to get anything out of Dumbledore by himself, because he had absolutely no aptitude for the mind arts, and because the Headmaster was firmly seated in his belief that Harry didn't need to know the gritty details until the very last moment – to preserve his childhood or some cock-and-bull story like that.

"Yes yes, calm down luv. I was just thinking that it'd be such a shame to see you killed for this. You're a proverbial fountain of untapped knowledge, you know that?" Crowley's dark eyes sparkled with amusement as he watched Harry tense, and noted where his hand hovered near the back pocket of his jeans.

"So... what then? You want my memories? Is that it?"

Harry desperately needed Crowley to stop playing games. An alarm was ringing in the back of his mind. Someone was in his room. Had he remembered to put the map away before he left? He couldn't remember...

"No, something more substantial than that. I think... Yes, that's good. Kiddo, I want your magic." That certainly wasn't what Harry'd been expecting. Give up his magic? Would Crowley want it in 10 years like usual, or would he want it sooner? In actuality, it was magic that had caused all of the major issues in his life, so being without it almost felt like a saving grace. Surely Crowley didn't intend for it to be so, demons aren't exactly selfless, but it was a surprisingly good deal.

"Deal. When?"

"What?" Harry could have laughed at the shocked look on the demon's face if the situation weren't so serious. Someone could stumble across them at any moment, depending on what he had done with the mess of research that was his room.

"When, as in, how long do I have until you'll be wanting my magic?"

There was a lengthy pause, Crowley presumably attempting to work out why Harry seemed to eager to agree to what Crowley would have thought of as a rather hefty price. Then again, from what Harry had gleamed from stories, most people who made deals didn't even  _know_  the price when they made their deals.

"A year," Crowley eventually decided, "Once you defeat this Voldemort person, you can keep your magic for up to one year. Of course, if at any point during that year you feel like giving it up early, just give me a shout and I'll come running." Harry couldn't help but roll his eyes at that, while on the inside he was actually a bit shocked. That was longer than he was expecting. One part of him had almost been expecting Crowley to demand payment up-front, what with the way his eyes seemed to light up when he named the price. He didn't even want to know why Crowley wanted his magic. He'd sleep better at night that way.

"Alright, good, deal."

That, unfortunately, was as far as Harry's knowledge on demon deals went. He had no idea how demons went about 'sealing the deal', although his imagination was trying to tell him it was going to be horrific and painful. He certainly hoped not. It wouldn't do him any good to show up back at Grimmauld twitching as though he had just been under the cruciatus. They'd never let him out of the house again!

Crowley smirked, sensing his discomfort, and stepped closer.

And closer.

And closer.

Until he was right in front of Harry.

Crowley wasn't the tallest person Harry had ever met, but he still had to tilt his head back in order to meet the demon's eyes now that they were so close together. In any other situation Harry might have been fuming about the height difference, but everything in him was screaming for him to flee, and it was taking just about all of his willpower  _not_  to turn tail and run.

Crowley rested a hand on the back of Harry's neck and, distractedly, part of Harry was surprised that the hand was warm. Before he knew what was happening a pair of lips had covered his own.

 _Typical,_  Harry found himself thinking,  _my first kiss stolen by a demon._  He should have hated it, pushed Crowley away. For the love of Merlin, it was a  _demon!_  But he stood his ground and allowed it to happen, closing his eyes.

Harry pulled away with a gasp when Crowley's thumb dug into his neck, burning him. Scowling, with a glare stolen from the best, Harry gingerly rubbed the side of his neck, resisting the urge to lick his lips. He'd only ever been kissed once before, after all, and he didn't like to count that. It was something of a dark stain in his memories.

" _What did you do to me?!_ " Harry hissed, his words barely English in his anger. Of course, his anger only served to amuse Crowley, who had taken several steps back to stand on top of where Harry had buried his summoning box.

"Nothing bad," Crowley placated, attempting to sound reassuring but only managing to sound vaguely amused instead. When he didn't offer any further explanation Harry spun on his heel, kicking up a cloud of dirt, and apparated to the corner of Grimmauld Place.

Not making any attempt to be subtle, Harry stormed down the street and into Number 12. The moment the front door slammed shut the voices from the kitchen ceased, but Harry wasn't interested in them. Running up the stairs he locked himself in the first bathroom he came across and stared into the mirror.

There, in black, burned into the side of his neck, was the symbol of the crossroads.

"Shit."


	5. Horcruxes

**Chapter 5 – Horcruxes:**

Every day Harry woke up wondering if it would be the day Crowley got back to him. Despite his initial moping around he did put the time to good use – well, good from his perspective, no-one else would understand his motivation.

Every morning Harry went for a walk and bought a copy of the muggle newspaper from the nearest store. Knowing what the masses were up to was generally a good idea, not that the rest of the magical folk seemed to realise that. As he furthered his own muggle education he developed a rather pessimistic thought pattern. At least once a day there would be some little thing or another that set him off thinking about how  _ignorant_  and  _naïve_ wizards were.

Once he was up-to-date with the world Harry believed he would actually feel more at home amongst the mundane people than he did in the magical community. Regular people coped just fine without magic, in fact, Harry liked to believe that they coped even better, because the lack of magic meant that in order to achieve things they had to create new technologies. Compared to everything the muggles had created and achieved the magical community was still stuck in the dark ages, and that wasn't a good thing.

* * *

Six weeks passed like that, interrupted only by random visits by Headmaster Dumbledore. Each time he visited Harry attempted to talk with him, and every single time he was brushed aside. The war was growing larger and larger as time went on, and Harry was about ready to strangle someone! Did they want him to stop Voldemort or not?

He was beginning to get the feeling that people  _expected_  him to die in the 'final confrontation', so they weren't bothering to let him in on any of their plans. It was the only reason he could come up with to explain his wilful and purposeful exclusion.

* * *

It wasn't until the dawn of the seventh week that Harry heard anything from Crowley. He was sitting on the front lawn of Number 12 reading a book, hidden from view from the muggles and wizards alike, because none of the windows that looked out onto the street were clean enough to really see through. The burning in his neck was all the warning he got before the well-dressed demon appeared beside him.

"Bloody hell!" Harry cursed, dropping his book in his lap as he twisted around to get a better view of Crowley.

"A surprisingly apt, if not vague, description coming from someone who has never been."

Completely stumped Harry gazed open-mouthed in shock at the mysterious demon before him. Had Crowley just made a joke? Did demons joke? Trying to make plain logic out of the whole situation was only succeeding in making Harry's brain hurt. It was safer to simply assume that demons could act as human as they pleased. But really, making jokes about hell? How crude.

Wait a minute...

"Hang on, hell's real?" The question forced its way through Harry's self-censoring filters and bubbled past his lips before he had a chance to think about how ridiculous it sounded.

"Of course it is," Crowley replied, thoroughly amused, as he swung his arm forward and dropped a bag into Harry's lap. Letting out a surprised whoosh of air as the bag hit his stomach Harry stared curiously up at Crowley before turning his gaze to the bag. Reaching out with his magic Harry suddenly found himself feeling rather violently ill, so he shoved the bag away with as much force as he could muster.

The smirk which had adorned Crowley's face wavered at his reaction before morphing into a more neutral expression. Taking elegant steps the demon recollected the bag and held it between two fingers by the drawstrings.

"What the  _hell_  is inside that?" Harry asked, voice shaky. In an attempt to remain as far away as possible from the volatile contents of Crowley's bag Harry drew all of his magic into the centre of his being. It made him feel detached from the world, sealing off his magical senses like that, but he would deal with it for as long as he was in the same vicinity as those vile items.

"Believe it or not, I find these things just as repulsive as you do luv," Crowley informed the young wizard, opening the bag and revealing an odd assortment of items. Once he had shown the contents to Harry he pulled the drawstrings shut again and dropped the bag on the ground so he didn't have to keep touching it.

"Alright, I get that they're disgusting, but what  _are_ they?"

"Those right there are fragments of your Voldemort's soul. Frightful things indeed, those. Even jolly old Lucifer wouldn't wish to rip his soul to shreds, and before you ask, yes, he does have a soul. Sort of."

"Ever since I found out about the existence of demons I guess I always figured that Tom would get along pretty well with them, but I get the feeling you disagree. But soul pieces? Who does that?" A shudder raced down Harry's spine at the thought. He didn't even want to know what a person had to do in order to tear their soul. By the looks of it Crowley wasn't all that impressed either, which he had to admit he found odd, all things considered.

"You would think so, wouldn't you?  _Mortals._ " Crowley shook his head exasperatedly, shoving his hands into the pockets of his suit pants. "Souls are precious to us demons, you could almost say they were a necessary currency. Therefore, no matter how  _horrific_  or  _vile_  a demon is deemed to be, none would look kindly upon a person who would willingly mutilate their own soul like that before hitting the racks down in Hell."

Morbidly curious, Harry wondered what Crowley meant by the racks, but knew better by now than to ask about it.

"So..." Harry nudged the bag with his foot. "Are you sure that's all of them?"

"Technically, yes."

"'Technically'? What the hell does that mean?!" Crowley sighed and lifted his gaze to rest on Harry's scar.

"These are all of the ones currently in existence." He tilted his head slightly and ran a hand through his hair. "Well, these and the snake, but I'm having someone else deal with that for me. Ghastly creatures, snakes. I'm not sure why anyone would want one as a pet. Now Hellhounds, they make good pets."

"Snake... Nagini? So even living things can be used to house bits of soul?"

"Indeed they can," Crowley immediately sobered up, his demeanour becoming much more serious compared to his previous fairly light-hearted attitude. "In fact, at one point, though not any more, you yourself were a container for some of dear Tommy boy's soul." Leaning forward Crowley tapped Harry's scar with his index finger, something almost akin to pity shining momentarily in his eyes. Harry wasn't sure how to react to the touch, considering the last time they had met; he was feeling conflicted enough as it was. On one hand he was disgusted, mortified even, that something that horrendous had actually been a part of him, but on the other hand he was just glad to know it was gone.

"But... How can it just be gone?" Harry glanced up, pleading with his eyes as Crowley traced the lightning bolt with his finger before pulling away. It was almost funny, in a dark, depressing kind of way, that now he was so starved for answers he was getting his information from a demon. Imagine that; a demon being the only person – er, lifeform – willing to truthfully answer his questions.

"Your guess is as good as mine, kid. According to your esteemed headmaster," Harry almost laughed at the spiteful way the demon spoke of Dumbledore. It was a refreshing change from the regular hero worship from the Order. "The soul pieces must be destroyed by something essentially irreversible. For a living container that's easy enough – kill it. You, however, are most certainly not dead. Had any near-death experiences you reckon might fit the bill?"

Harry bit his lip, thinking hard. To be frank, he had been in a lot of life-threatening situations, but he'd never come  _that_  close to dying, had he?

But wait, yes he had. In his second year.

"I was bitten by a basilisk when I was twelve," he mumbled, more to himself than to Crowley.

"And you didn't die? Curious that." Harry stared past Crowley, ignoring the analytical way the demon was watching him. The diary then; that must have held a piece of Voldemort, and he had destroyed it with a basilisk fang. But he could have sworn he had seen a cup, a chalice, inside the bag. How on earth was he meant to stab that?

"If I destroy all these things, will that make him mortal again?" Harry asked somewhat desperately. If there was something else he would have to do Harry wasn't sure he could go through with it, because it would have to be even more revolting than shredding your own soul.

"Should do. If, for some ridiculous reason, that proves false, I then have no grounds to take your magic, so I really wouldn't gain anything from lying."

Harry couldn't help laughing at that. He hadn't laughed in months. Still, trust a demon to use selfishness as a measure of reliability. Pushing himself up from the dying grass Harry brushed his hair out of his eyes and stared up at Crowley, almost shyly holding his hand out.

Somewhat bemused about the whole thing, Crowley shook his hand.

"I guess I should say thanks, for doing all of this for me," Harry offered up softly, averting his gaze and allowing his hand to fall back to his side. Crowley actually laughed at that.

"You have truly got to be the strangest person I've ever made a deal with, kid." Shaking his head he reached out and lightly dragged his finger across the brand on Harry's pale neck. "I'll see you around, kiddo."

And then he vanished.

Letting out an almost frustrated sigh Harry sank back into the grass, hugged his knees to his chest, and warily poked the bag of soul pieces. Surely they had a proper name, but then again he wasn't sure he wanted to know. There seemed to be a lot of things nowadays that he'd prefer not knowing. Ignorance was not necessarily bliss, in fact it could be incredibly frustrating, but it  _was_  sometimes safety.

Hearing the front door of Number 12 swing open Harry turned around, a small frown tugging the corners of his lips down. Had they been standing there that whole time, waiting for Crowley to leave? Number 12 was technically a muggle residence, and as such there was a peep-hole in the front door. The shadowy figure in the doorway could have been spying on him. It was an unsettling thought, and Harry was partly disgusted by how paranoid he had become.

But, Harry mused, it wasn't really paranoia when every time he turned around someone was there, inquiring as to his health and well-being. And, every now and again, he would catch a glimpse of the snarky potions professor, who was still angry at him for going to face down the demon alone. He could only imagine what sort of treatment he might start receiving from the man if he knew Harry had willingly been in contact with even _more_  demons.

"Harry dear? Lunch is ready, if you're eating." The figure stepped out into the light and Harry breathed a sigh of relief, stifling the groan of annoyance that also wanted to break free. Molly Weasley, the bane of his peaceful existence at Grimmauld Place.

It wasn't that he didn't like the Weasley Matriarch, but she was incredibly overbearing. In fact, she had practically moved in to Grimmauld Place for as long as school was in session, and he wouldn't put it past her to convince the rest of the Weasleys to move in as well once the school year was over.

Staring blankly across at her he had to admit to being a little bit relieved. Molly didn't really possess the subtlety necessary to pull off any spying; as soon as she thought something was going down she would burst in, guns blazing. So no, there was no chance that she had seen him talking with Crowley. In honour of that lucky achievement Harry decided to be semi-sociable for once and eat in the kitchen.

"Sure." Carefully stretching out his legs Harry stood up, brushed the grass off of his jeans and resolutely picked up the bag, willing himself to ignore the small tendrils of dark magic that licked at his fingertips. In a house as dark as Grimmauld there was pretty much no chance that anyone would notice anything off about the bag's contents, not while Remus was gone at any rate, so he wasn't too worried about bringing it with him. It was safer than leaving it unattended at any rate.

* * *

The rest of the day passed by as usual, with Harry secluding himself in his room. Lunch had been... awkward, to say the least. More than one person had questioned him about Crowley's bag, but he had ignored all of them. It was none of their business.

Once the sun had set, Harry decided it was safe enough to set about his destruction plans. Gathering his invisibility cloak from his trunk, just in case, he snapped his fingers and quietly called for Dobby. He would have asked Kreacher, the old house-elf had been looking at him oddly for several weeks now and Harry wondered if it were a good sign or a bad one, but he didn't trust him.

"What can I's do for Master Harry Potter sir?"

Harry smiled fondly at the bubbly creature and clasped the bag's drawstrings tightly between his fingers.

"This is all hush hush, right Dobby?" The house-elf nodded enthusiastically and Harry suppressed a chuckle. "I need you to take me to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Can you do that?"

"Of course I can!" The elf appeared offended by the insinuation that he might be incapable of doing something to help Harry. Shaking his head Harry just grinned, grabbing Dobby's shoulder with his free hand.

An almost-silent pop and a nauseating feeling in his gut later Harry found himself in the recently flooded girls bathroom on the second floor. Dobby instantly disappeared off to the kitchens once more in order to avoid suspicion. It wouldn't do for the elf to be gone for too long at once.

" _ **Open,**_ " Harry hissed as he walked towards the snake-engraved sink. Thankfully, it would seem that Myrtle herself was on an excursion to some other part of the school, because Harry really wasn't in any sort of mood to deal with her and her apparent infatuation with him. The water soaked through his shoes, but he ignored it, steeling himself for the plunge down the pipe.

Settling himself on the lip of the pipe he closed his eyes and pushed off.

It took a much shorter time than it felt, and when Harry hit the bone-covered floor at the bottom his lip was sluggishly bleeding from the amount of pressure he had put on it to prevent himself from crying out and giving himself away. Sure, he might have been an adrenaline junkie when it came to flying, but essentially free-falling down an extremely vertical pipe was something else altogether.

Glancing back up the tunnel he hissed out " _ **Close**_ **,** " and listened to the sink settling back into place above him. It wouldn't have been possible for Dobby to apparate him into the chamber, the elf having never been there before, but he could easily get Harry out again. With the sink closed it didn't matter who might enter the bathroom, there would be nothing there to suggest his presence in the school. Not with the Marauder's Map locked securely in his trunk back at Grimmauld.

"Come on then," he muttered to himself, clasping his wand tightly in his right hand, "Nothing down here can hurt you, the basilisk is dead for Salazar's sake!" Shaking away his lingering doubts –  _it's been_ years _, who's to say there's any basilisk left to use_  – Harry put one foot in front of the other and headed further in, stepping over centuries worth of rodent carcasses to reach the inner chamber where he had once faced the shade of the teenage Tom Riddle.

Commanding the giant door to open – and he couldn't actually remember closing it when he left the first time – Harry was hit with a rather unpleasant sense of nostalgia. He was rather grateful that the two situations weren't similar enough to warrant deja vu, because if they were he might actually have to give in to his urge to vomit.

The light inside the inner chamber was dim, and it had an almost green sheen to it, though it might just have been Harry's eyes playing tricks on him. The stench however, was unbearable, and could not possibly have been brought forth by his imagination. Surprisingly it wasn't just a stench of death, but also of mildew and paper rot, of the natural decay of all sorts of things. Considering how old the chamber was it shouldn't have been surprising at all, but there hadn't even been a slight hint of it previously. It would seem that Harry had somehow broken whatever preservation spells might have been in place in the chamber.

 _Chamber of Secrets indeed_ , Harry thought to himself as he approached the basilisk corpse, casting a quick bubble-head charm as he walked to allow him some clean air to breathe. Once upon a time there were probably countless things down in the chamber to discover, and Harry wouldn't have been adverse to doing the discovering, but it was too late for that sort of thing, and he was here on a different sort of mission.

Discarding the bag of dark objects and his invisibility cloak, Harry approached the mouth of the basilisk. If anything, the poisonous fangs were even larger than he remembered. Gritting his teeth and armed with his wand Harry forcefully removed one of the smaller fangs from the corpse's mouth. If it had still been alive Harry might have felt bad about it, but the corpse didn't exactly need any fangs.

"If this doesn't work, I'm officially out of ideas," Harry admitted to the empty chamber. Being idea-less wasn't a good feeling, so he hoped dearly it would work. He didn't pray though; if there were to be some sort of divine intervention in his life he would have much preferred it as a child when he was still living in the cupboard under the stairs.

Emptying the contents of the bag on the worn stone ground Harry examined them, trying to decide which he should attempt to destroy first. Nothing in the small pile looked particularly vulnerable. Shifting his gaze to the side he decided that now wasn't the best time to be doubting the strength of the basilisk's fang or its venom.

Shrugging, Harry chose the gold cup. Sitting it on the ground he knelt down next to it, ignoring the dampness chilling his knees, and stared unsurely at the fang in his hand.

"There's no way this is going to work..."

Pulling his arm back he aimed carefully for the centre of the cup. He would have closed his eyes, but he had no desire to accidentally stab himself, for it would make his whole ordeal rather pointless, not to mention it would save Voldemort the effort of killing him personally. Sending up a quick prayer – to Fate, not God, for the latter had proved to be rather uncaring of Harry's plight – he tightened his grip on the fang and plunged it down with as much force as he could muster.

As the tip of the fang made contact with the metal venom escaped from it, causing the metal to melt and let out an awful hissing sound. Unfortunately that was only the beginning. As the fang sank deeper into the cup a black smoke emerged, not altogether unlike the apparent physical form of the demon he exorcised all those weeks ago, accompanied by an awful banshee-like screech.

Startled, Harry dropped the fang and clamped his hands over his ears. He shut his eyes and bent forward, forehead resting against the cold, damp floor. There was an overwhelming explosion of dark magic emanating from the cup and it was tearing away at his composure.

Harry wasn't sure he had the determination to be able to go through that three more times.

When he was absolutely certain that the ringing in his head had receded Harry raised himself off of the ground and wrapped his fingers around the basilisk fang once more.

He could do this.

More importantly, he  _would_  do this.

 


	6. Ending the War

**Chapter 6 – Ending the War:**

_April 1998:_

Two weeks.

Two long, torturous weeks. 16 days if he was going to be really specific. 16 days where Harry paced anxiously throughout Number 12, some days not eating at all, and others eating simply for something to do to take his mind off of the waiting for a little while. There was only so long he could spend sitting in his room at one time trying to figure out how to go about killing Voldemort without even the knowledge that it was yet possible.

He hadn't expected it to take that long. Because seriously, how long does it take a demon to kill a snake? But it did, and it was nerve-racking, and he hated it.

Given that Harry was showing his face around Number 12 more than ever his behaviour had freaked out pretty much every single person who stopped by, but the frantic teen brushed off all of their concerns with a vague explanation of "I'm waiting for something." It didn't do much to alleviate their fears, but at least they knew Harry hadn't simply snapped and gone insane.

When contact was finally made, 16 whole days after his trip to the Chamber of Secrets, Harry wasn't sure whether to laugh, cry, scream, or hit something. The bloody ass hadn't even graced him with his physical presence.

Nope. Instead, while Harry was moping in the kitchen one day, the brand on his neck heated up, not painfully, but still somewhat uncomfortably, and Crowley's voice had whispered in his ear "The snake's dead, luv." Remus had eyed him oddly when his hand shot up to clamp down on the mark, so he quickly forced it back down to the table, but he couldn't fully contain the glare he desperately wanted to throw at the smarmy demon.

"Something wrong cub?" Harry couldn't help the slight upwards twitch of his lips. It always made him smile when Remus called him cub, no matter what sort of mood he was in. He could hardly tell the werewolf the truth about his odd behaviour –  _oh yeah, I've just been hearing voices in my head, same old same old_  – because he'd probably only freak the poor man out. Admitting to being delusional wasn't the most inspiring thing their saviour could do, even if he knew it was completely real.

"I'm just a bit antsy, you know? I don't think I'll be quite right until Voldemort's good and dead." Shaking his head and ignoring the now sad, pitying look in Remus's amber eyes, Harry climbed to his feet as stoically as possible and walked calmly from the room, slipping up the stairs to his bedroom.

Hedwig hooted softly at him from her perch near the window when he entered. The owl was probably the only person he could really talk to about anything nowadays, because he knew she wouldn't judge and she  _couldn't_ try and talk him out of anything. Oh, she'd had a right go at him when he came back from his first meeting with Crowley, but once he'd explained his thoughts to her she calmed down.

If she just so happened to snap at anyone who tried to pet her that wasn't Harry, he was hardly going to complain or try and do anything about it.

"What am I supposed to do, girl?" Harry asked quietly, stroking the snowy owl's head gently with two fingers. He didn't have a clue where Voldemort was – apparently that didn't count as part of the deal – and actually coming face to face with the man was pretty much an essential part of killing him. Not that he wanted to kill him.

Well, he did, but he didn't want it to have to be  _him_. After the whole fiasco with Dragomir Harry just wasn't sure if he'd be able to stomach killing. I mean yeah, he was a bad guy, worst of the worst – Harry knew that, he really did, and yet... Why? Why did Fate decide to find some seer and whisper in their ear that a  _child_  would have to become a murderer. He'd much rather let his own choices guide his actions, rather than the knowledge of a prophecy.

Even now he couldn't be certain if he was doing all these things because he wanted to, or because something out there was manipulating him to ensure that the job got done, regardless of method.

It wasn't an encouraging thought.

Crowley would be of no further assistance, the Order couldn't know about what he was doing or they would try to stop him, and he was deathly afraid of going back to the church – not because he was afraid of rejection or anger because of his actions, but because he was afraid of making it and the people who worked and visited there targets.

"My life is so messed up," he muttered, eyes burning with months of unshed tears. A small chuckle escaped him when Hedwig crooned softly, bumping her head against Harry's face. It was nice to have someone care for him unconditionally; he'd never had that before, never had the  _chance_ to have that. Nodding decisively to himself he scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand, willing away the tears – now was not an appropriate time to give in to his obvious emotional weakness – and reaching out blindly for the pad of lined paper and the pen he always had within reach lying on top of his desk.

If there was one thing Harry knew Voldemort hated, apart from himself and Headmaster Dumbledore, it was anything muggle. In which case there was only really one way to go about this.

Harry would send him a letter asking to meet, just the two of them – he wasn't naïve enough to expect Voldemort to comply, but he didn't want any witnesses from his side – written on muggle stationary. That was an effective combination of two of the things the Dark Lord despised, AND it was likely to infuriate Dumbledore, which is something Voldemort loved doing.

The pad paper was mostly a choice of convenience, but it would also make the man angrier and more likely to accept.

Harry could only pray he accepted. He didn't have any other ideas as to how to track down Voldemort, because he certainly wasn't going to sit around on his ass waiting for another raid, one that he may or may not attend. The sooner the better, too. The absence of Nagini might not yet have been noticed, but once it was Harry was sure Voldemort would start checking up on his soul pieces – at least, that's what he would do.

Whether the man had enough soul left in his body to make any more was something Harry didn't want to find out.

Settling down on the floor, Hedwig moving to perch on his shoulder as though to oversee and criticise his letter writing skills, he pulled the cap off the pen with his teeth and hovered the tip over the page, thinking.

* * *

An hour and multiple screwed up balls of paper later Harry had what seemed to him like an acceptable letter. It wasn't formal, he had never gotten the hang of writing like that, but it was straight to the point and stated exactly what he wanted to happen.

_Voldemort,_

_Personally I think that this war has gone on for long enough. I'm sick of it. So there's some stupid prophecy dictating my death. So what?_  
It would seem that there are a fair amount of people on both sides of the fence vying for my death, so why don't we put them out of their misery?  
I propose a meeting between us, a final showdown if you will. Just you and me. One of us will die and the other will walk away victorious, having effectively won the war for their side.  
Two days from now, April 6th, at the cemetery where you were resurrected.

_Your Enemy,  
Harry James Potter_

Harry had been sorely tempted to write all sorts of scathing and sarcastic comments in the letter, hence all of the discarded drafts, but this would suffice. It might have been a bit morbid, commandeering a fight to the death in a cemetery, but for some reason it was fitting. The place of the Dark Lord's rebirth would be the place of his downfall.

"What do you think Hedwig?" He asked, looking at her from the corner of his eye as she appeared to peer down at the notepad. Abruptly she straightened up and lightly tugged on his earlobe with her beak. Harry wasn't sure if that was a yes or a no, but it was as good as it was going to get.

"Alright girl, I know you aren't going to like this, but I need you to take this to him for me, okay?" Harry asked as he tied the rolled up piece of paper to Hedwig's leg. He didn't bother saying out loud who it was for, he had been discussing it for long enough now and Hedwig was fairly intelligent, he swore she could read.

She ruffled her feathers and gave him a somewhat grave stare, as if warning him to stay out of danger, before acquiescing and flying out the open window. Harry watched her retreating form until it disappeared from sight.

With nothing to do but wait for the time to come, he picked himself up off the ground, threw himself onto his bed, and picked up a book on Hindi folklore.

He might as well do something semi productive.

* * *

Voldemort had responded to his message with a single word, dawn, and so there Harry was, standing in front of the grave of Tom Riddle Senior in the grey near-light of early morning, before people were stirring from restful sleeps and away from prying eyes. Although he doubted it was intentional, he almost felt the need to thank the dark wizard for demanding their meeting be at such a convenient time for sneaking out. Harry shuddered to think what sort of troubles he might have encountered had the Dark Lord said noon or something ridiculous like that. It would appear that he was eager to prove his superiority over Harry, and so chose for it to happen as soon as possible on the specified day.

And yet he wasn't there.

Harry supposed Voldemort wanted to make him wait so that he could make some dramatic entrance. There was a hint of his magic surrounding the cemetery, but no active magical signature. He was nowhere nearby, not in person anyway.

Harry scuffed the ground with his foot, trying  _not_  to think about all the nightmare-inducing things that happened the last time he was here. It was pretty twisted of him, he realised, to want to create even more horrible memories in this place, but oddly enough he wasn't disturbed by the thought.

Voldemort's appearance was less dramatic than Harry had anticipated.

One moment Harry was standing alone amongst dilapidated gravestones; the next he was confronted by the serpentine man and a group of black-robed figures – he would have said men, but he got the distinct feeling that Bellatrix was there too. Voldemort had an arrogant, holier-than-thou expression on his pale face, and as he stood before Harry the young man supposed he must have been waiting for him to protest to his entourage.

He wasn't going to. It would be pointless, it wasn't like anything he said had any weight in situations like this anyway.

"So, Harry Potter, come to die at last?"

"Yeah," Harry agreed vaguely, watching Voldemort caress his wand, "Something like that."

In an ankle holster, hidden by his uncharacteristic combat boots, was a dagger. The same dagger, in fact, that he had had specially crafted for his showdown with the demon inside of Dragomir. It hadn't proved to be of much use in that situation, but for a regular mortal...

Plus, if he missed with that, there was always the gun hidden under his shirt in his waistband. He'd been practising, not that anyone cared to notice, ever since his first discussion with Crowley about his magic. He wasn't naïve enough to trust that his luck might improve once this was all over, and being magic-less only left him with finding a new way to defend himself.

Delving into the shadier parts of London was the least of his worries these days.

"What do you think?" Voldemort asked his assembled Death Eaters, not bothering to keep an eye on Harry, "Should I let him die quickly or should he suffer?"

Laughter, harsh and dark, rang out from the cloaked watchers, and Harry arranged his expression into a look of mild annoyance, taking calculated steps closer to the dark wizard, trying to get the man within his throwing range. Step by step he used Voldemort's distraction as he fed his own ego to advance upon him.

Unfortunately, it was never going to be that easy.

A twig snapped beneath Harry's foot, causing Voldemort to spin around, wand in hand and a spell on his lips.

"Crucio!" He roared, jet of red light hitting Harry in the chest.

Gasping, Harry stared blankly up at the dim early-morning sky as his body bent backwards, knees sinking down onto the grass. Pain tore through his body like thousands of white-hot blades piercing deep into his skin, tearing him apart from the inside out.

But he refused to scream. He would not give Voldemort the satisfaction. Even if he were to die here, he would die with his dignity intact.

Finally, after what felt like hours but was really only a minute, Voldemort lifted the curse. Harry's body collapsed into a shivering pile on the grass at Voldemort's feet, gasping in short, sharp lungfuls of air. This was good, despite the pain that would no doubt plague him for the next few days. He was close, much closer now than he could really have hoped to get without detection.

Clenching his teeth Harry forced himself to his knees and peered up at the wizard towering over him from under his messy fringe.

"You'll... have to try... harder than that," He gasped out, glaring defiantly up into red eyes.

Voldemort had the audacity to laugh at him then. A full-bodied laugh that shook his skeletal frame. It would have been scary enough if it had been a sarcastic laugh, but he was truly amused, if you ignored the malicious undertone that couldn't be avoided when dealing with someone as messed up as him.

"Oh, I'm going to have fun with you today Potter." Voldemort's pale barely-there lips twitched into a smirk that promised pain. "Crucio."

Harry bit his tongue, filling his mouth with the sharp, bitter, metallic tang of blood. He had just opened his mouth to say something else when the pain rocketed through his body once again, inflaming old injuries he didn't even know he had.

His hands curled in the grass, fingers digging into the graveyard dirt, but he refused to bow to the pain. Not this time.

Harry vaguely registered the sound of the Death Eaters laughing at his misfortune, but everything was fuzzy. If he didn't know better he would have sworn his brain was melting from the strain on his nerves.

What was he even doing here? When Voldemort released the curse he could simply apparate back to Grimmauld and recover, lick his wounds so to speak.

With the end of the curse three minutes later came coherent thought and pain. An insurmountable level of pain. Pain on a level he had never experienced before, and he had been under the cruciatus more times than he cared to admit. It was ridiculous, how strongly dark magic reacted to Voldemort.

"Still feeling cocky, Potter?"

Harry could barely breathe, his lungs burned so badly; he hardly had the energy left to respond to the Dark Lord's taunts.

"That's what I thought."

The gun under Harry's shirt was a cold weight against his skin. He knew he should use it, but he no longer felt that his muscles would be able to cope with trying to aim it. What he needed was a distraction, a chance for him to pull himself together as best he could under the circumstances.

Coughing, Harry curled in on himself, hands releasing the ground to clutch at his stomach. Steeling himself, he took a breath and spat blood onto the hem of Voldemort's robe. As expected, the wizard recoiled in disgust. Harry smirked through his pain and, fingers trembling, he fumbled inside his boot for his knife.

"Sectumsempra!" Voldemort yelled in disgust, jabbing his wand at Harry's trembling form. Emerald eyes noted one of the cloaked figures stiffen at the curse, but ignored it.

" _Shit_ ," Harry hissed out, revolted at the unsettling feeling of warm blood dripping from a serious cut to his left arm, rolling down over his hyper-sensitive nerve-endings. Through all of it Harry refused to let go of the knife. It was his life-line. He would deal with the pain and his injuries when all of this was over, not a moment before.

"Stand up Potter!" The Dark Lord demanded, crimson eyes glaring down at him. "If you are to die I wish to kill you while standing, not while you're in a quivering pile at my feet, regardless of how pleasant an image that is."

That was a low blow, Harry thought to himself as he curled his fingers tighter around the hilt of the blade, digging the dagger into the grass to help him stand. Blood was pounding in his ears, the beating of his heart drowning out what he knew to be the biting laughter of evil men as he struggled to his feet.

Voldemort paid no mind to the glinting dagger encased in Harry's right hand, if he saw it at all. Crimson blood dripped in slow drops across the surface of the blade, tarnishing it.

"There, isn't that better? Wouldn't you rather die on your feet?"

Harry scowled, face twisting into a bitter expression of scorn.

"You don't get to order me around, Tom."

Lurching forward, stumbling as his body protested his movement, Harry raised the dagger and, using his momentum as he tripped, feet betraying him, plunged the blade deep into Voldemort's chest. For a moment Harry could have sworn he felt hands on his shoulders, pushing him forward, because he sure as hell didn't think he had that sort of stamina left in him, stumble or no stumble.

Blood burst from Voldemort's chest, coating Harry's clothes, but he didn't notice. As the life fled from the Dark Lord's body his vision faded, darkening first at the edges, then spreading until there was nothing left. The last thing he saw – or thought he saw anyway – was a figure in a black suit.

Trembling limbs collapsing underneath him, he fell, unconscious, to the ground.


	7. Gringotts

**Chapter 7 – Gringotts:**

The first thing Harry saw was harsh, bright light, so he closed his eyes again.

Movement off to the side caught his attention, but he wasn't keen on opening his eyes again anytime soon, so he moved to sit up instead. At least, that's what he intended to do.

The moment he attempted to move his fingers pain shot through his body, causing his entire body to seize up. Despite his clenched teeth an achingly pained moan fought its way out.

Something brushed against his shoulder and he nearly screamed. It felt as though he were covered in a layer of fire; everything  _burned_. Voldemort was dead now, he remembered that, so why couldn't they just let him  _die?_ It would be infinitely less painful!

"Potter!"

Harry's internal rambling monologue cut off abruptly and he hesitantly cracked open an eye at the brisk, annoyed voice somewhere near his head.

"Good, you  _are_  awake. I wasn't looking forward to dealing with another of your petty night terrors." The snarky voice continued, unsympathetic.

Internally Harry frowned – for he didn't dare try and move any of the muscles in his face – he knew that voice, but there was no reason for him to be hearing it now. Carefully, slowly, Harry opened both his eyes, fighting to ignore the pain that flared up even in his eyelids. This wasn't living; this was a daze of agony.

"I ought to leave you here to suffer in pain for weeks on end, because believe me, with the length of time you were under it will take longer than three days to heal. You're lucky I was there, or you would have bled out from the Dark Lord's final curse. Idiot boy."

Harry couldn't decipher whether the 'idiot' was affectionate or irritable. Probably annoyed. It would suit his character better than the alternative.

"I want answers," Snape informed him emotionlessly, waving a vial in Harry's line of sight, "That's the only reason I'm going to give this to you. The Headmaster told me to leave you be, and before you try and ask, no, he has no idea that you're laid up in bed, or that you've been comatose for the last two and a half days."

Without giving him a chance to really process what had been said Snape uncorked the vial and forced it between Harry's lips, pouring it down his throat, not caring as he coughed and spluttered, choking it down. It wasn't as foul as skel-e-grow, but it was up there. For a moment he almost empathised with what Snape must have had to go through over the years, but then he remembered who it was hovering over him, choking him and forcing him to move. The compassion quickly evaporated.

"Don't you dare whine. I'm not here to listen to your complaints. It's your own stupidity that landed you like this."

Harry felt that that was meant to be a reprimand, but he didn't care. He'd finally done what everyone had been expecting of him. Couldn't they just leave him in peace?

"First, I suppose it's only fair to tell you that yes, He is truly dead this time. I'm not sure how you managed it, because the Headmaster made it quite clear to me that it wasn't yet possible, since he hadn't collected or destroyed all of the Dark Lord's horcruxes."

"That's what they're called then?" Harry gasped out, throat scratchy from sleep and lack of use. Snape scowled at him, though it was a more thoughtful, scrutinising scowl than his usual I-despise-being-in-your-presence scowl.

"How did you know about them?"

"Destroyed 'em."

Even Harry's throat was burning, regardless of the slight numbness that had overtaken his limbs after the potion was forced down his throat. He needed a glass of water, but he highly doubted Snape would acquiesce to being his 'servant' for any reason other than if he was truly dying, and even then he decided, now that he was no longer required, Snape would rather watch him die.

"Fine then. Who told you about them, Potter?" Snape's beady black eyes were boring into him so intently that Harry passingly wondered if he were attempting legilimency, but as he felt no pressure against his shields there was no evidence suggesting it was anything other than his best intimidating stare.

Harry swallowed heavily, refusing to speak. There was no way he was going to incriminate Crowley, because then he would be incriminating himself. Just because demons were the stuff of myth and legend in the magical world it didn't mean he wouldn't be in trouble for openly consorting with one.

"Insufferable brat. Fine. Do not tell me."

If that was Snape  _whining_ , and Harry had to admit, it very well could be, then the world must be ending. Or Hell had frozen over. He sort of hoped it wasn't the second one, magically binding contract and all that.

"As much as I enjoy seeing you lying here, prone and suffering, I feel it is in both of our best interests for you to recover as quickly as possible, if only to avoid suspicion. Word hasn't gotten out yet about what you did, but when it does I doubt you'll want to be anywhere nearby. Which, as much as it pains me to do this, means I shall be leaving you with a supply of potions that will aid you in recovering from your bout of torture."

Harry blinked up at his old teacher, barely biting back the 'why' that wanted to be asked. The pain wasn't sufficient for him to die from, he realised that now, so simply doing what he was told for once would allow him to leave sooner rather than later. Though he was loathe to admit it, Snape was correct, he wanted to be nowhere near anyone, particularly Dumbledore, once word got around of Voldemort's death.

"Thank you," Harry whispered instead, staring up into cold, coal-coloured eyes. They blinked once, the only tell that what Harry said had surprised the older man. Scowl morphing back to irritated the potions master stood up and swept from the room, trademark black robes flaring out behind him.

Closing his eyes Harry tried to go back to sleep. He needed as much energy as he could get in order to get away from the Order without anyone noticing.

* * *

_13th April 1998:_

Four days after he first woke up from his apparent coma Harry decided it was time to go.

Climbing to his feet on still trembling legs – it wasn't as bad as it had been, but he certainly wouldn't be walking with much speed any time soon – he threw all of his possessions except for his books into his trunk, shrunk it, and put it in the pocket of his jeans.

His books went into the messenger bag he had begged Hermione to cast undetectable extension and feather-light charms on. They had become his life over the past year and he needed to know they were with him, that he could get to them at any time. His trunk just wasn't good enough – not to mention they wouldn't fit in there anyway.

Grimmauld Place was quiet, for once free of the constant sound of motion coming from downstairs. Whether or not that meant the house was unoccupied was a whole other question, but not one he was willing to find the answer to.

Checking once again that he had everything with him he pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt, casting a shadow over his face to make it harder to recognise him – not that wizards were likely to want to pay much attention to anyone dressed as a muggle in Diagon Alley.

His knife, which had somehow found its way back to him, had been thoroughly cleaned and was back in its holster around his ankle; his gun was holstered around his waist, sitting under a disillusionment charm.

Satisfied, and stoically ignoring the fainter trembles that shot down his arms erratically, Harry wrapped the fingers of his left hand around the strap of his bag and clenched his eyes shut, twisting on the spot.

* * *

Apparating, as per usual, made Harry want to sit down, throw up and fall over all at once. It was not something he would miss once he was no longer able to do it, regardless of the convenience. Getting around on his own two feet was much easier on his body, and less likely to leave him with an impressive migraine.

Shaking it off – which he quickly realised was a bad idea, given the less than healthy state of his body – Harry checked his hood, readjusted the strap of his bag, and stepped out of the shadowed alleyway he had chosen to apparate into just down the street from the Leaky Cauldron.

It was risky, going from Muggle London, but it was risky coming out at all, full stop. People hated him and loved him, and if he ran into any of his old classmates he simply knew he would get mobbed. It would put a rather large dampener on his plans.

Walking briskly, eye twitching as pain jolted up his legs every time his feet hit the pavement, Harry slipped into the Leaky Cauldron, ignored the greeting called out by Tom the barkeep, and continued, mostly unnoticed, through to the brick wall which hid the entrance to Diagon Alley.

To Harry, it was almost funny how  _normal_  everything seemed in Diagon. The Hogwarts term was still in session, so the crowds were minimal, but there was no celebrating, only the ever-present slight fear hovering at the edge of their minds to mar their day.

Harry knew their mind-set, and he also knew the true reality. None of them mattered to him anymore; only his destination, the pristine building at the end of the Alley. Gringotts.

Despite his now somewhat prolonged exposure to the Wizarding World, Harry had yet to gain any insight into how the economy really ran, or even what might be his in possession of the bank. It wasn't that he was hoping for some untold fortune awaiting him in the depths of the bank, he simply wanted to know what was rightfully his, and what he could do with it in his absence.

Harry nodded at the perpetually scowling goblin just inside the main doors into the bank, earning himself an extra dark sneer. Inwardly Harry rolled his eyes; it was honestly appalling that goblins had been so conditioned to expecting dismissive, arrogant and rude behaviour from wizards that they were suspicious of every action.

Heading for the closest free teller Harry was surprised to note that the goblin he found himself in front of was the one goblin whom Harry had met beforehand.

"Griphook, I would like to speak to someone about my accounts," Harry said quietly to the goblin, still somewhat wary of the harsh-looking creatures. When Griphook stared down his long nose at Harry, in what Harry assumed was a scowl – it was hard to tell with goblins – he stuttered out a "Please," thinking that Griphook was displeased with him.

Silent, the goblin continued to stare for a moment longer, before stepping away from his spot and gesturing for Harry to follow him. Bewildered, Harry readily complied, following the goblin through a maze of corridors until he was certain that he would be lost for days trying to find his way out on his own – perhaps that was the point.

Eventually Griphook came to a stop before a rather extravagant set of double doors – not extravagant for goblins in general, just a bit showy, in Harry's opinion, for so far into the building and possibly underground – which had a golden nameplate stuck to them.

_Ragnar, Inheritances._

And underneath that it read:

_Black vault manager._

It wasn't exactly what Harry had been expecting, but then again, what did he know about banks? Absolutely nothing, not even about muggle establishments.

Griphook pushed open one of the doors and said something in what Harry supposed was the language of goblins, harsh, guttural sounds that he would hate to have to attempt to replicate. After receiving an equally harsh-sounding response Griphook ushered Harry inside and promptly left.

Goblins didn't have the greatest manners, but Harry supposed he could forgive them.

"Mister Potter," Ragnar greeted him, offering up what Harry assumed was a smile – all he knew was that he didn't want to be anywhere near those jagged teeth. "I had both not been expecting this and been waiting for your visit."

Harry blinked owlishly at the goblin, sinking into the chair before the desk.

What?

"Why were you expecting me? I hadn't even thought of coming here until this morning when I woke up."

Ragnar's vicious grin receded, transforming into an expression akin to the scowls Harry was more used to receiving from the goblins.

"I was waiting because you needed to come here in order to properly receive what was left to you in the late Lord Black's will."

For some obscure reason Harry felt Ragnar was annoyed with him, but Harry was beyond confused. Sirius had had a will? Sirius had left him something? Why hadn't anyone told him about that?

"I was unaware that Sirius had made a will," Harry admitted quietly. The look on Ragnar's face made him instantly wish he had kept his mouth shut.

"Gringotts sent you an owl informing you of the will reading. Are you telling me you never received it?" Ragnar snarled, beady eyes blazing. Of course, Harry realised, if something happened that might lessen the reputation of the bank the goblins probably had every right to be as furious as Ragnar appeared then.

"B-but, you know, the owl could have just gotten lost, right?" Even Harry knew how unlikely that was; Hedwig had never failed to deliver a letter, and the goblins wouldn't have any sub-par delivery owls.

"Intercepted, yes, but not lost."

Harry gulped nervously, although he knew that the glare Ragnar was sporting wasn't directed at him. Was it seriously that bad?

"Surely that, um, the l-letter, uh, couldn't you just tell me about it now?" Harry mentally cursed himself for allowing Ragnar's glare to draw a stutter from him, but he needed to get it out. He didn't want to be caught in the goblin's rage.

"You are correct, Mister Potter, however I will be initiating an investigation into this matter once you leave," Ragnar conceded, glare lessening some as he settled into a more business-like manner.

"Now, it would take time to retrieve the late Mister Black's will from the archives, where it was stored after the will-reading. Instead, I shall simply recite from memory what applies to you. He left you his vault, Number 12 Grimmauld Place and all its contents, and he made you his heir, making you the legal Head of the Black family. Had this been known to you at the time, it would have entitled you to an emancipation. As it is, you are already a legal adult, so the point is null."

"Wait, vault? He left me his vault? I have enough money as it is!" Harry protested suddenly, mind whirling. Emancipation? Heir? Freaking  _Grimmauld Place?_

"Personal wealth not-with-standing, yes, Mister Black left you his vault. Some of the money from said vault was gifted to Mister Lupin, but the majority of it is still yours."

"But I don't- I- Ugh... I haven't got any use for what he's left me. I'm leaving the Magical World as soon as possible and I'm never coming back."

"Because Voldemort is dead?" Ragnar asked, sneer still in place – though there was a knowing look in his beady coal black eyes. Taking a deep breath Harry sunk further into the chair.

"How did you know that?" He asked. It wasn't accusing or suspicious, he just wanted to know if he should be worried.

"Tom Riddle also had a vault at Gringotts. It is key that we know when wizards come and go in order to know what to do with them." It was a vague answer, but it was all Harry needed to know. Only the goblins knew.

"That- Okay. Good." Thinking fast, Harry ran a hand through his unruly hair, tugging on the ends. "Can you- Can  _I_ , give Grimmauld to Remus Lupin?" He knew the werewolf cared for him, and he sort of owed him for forcing the ex-professor to put up with his moods and elusive, anti-social behaviour over the past few years.

"Yes, of course Mister Potter. Seeing as it is now yours you may do whatever you wish with it." Ragnar watched Harry curiously. Obviously he was aware of Lupin's status as a werewolf, and perhaps he was wondering why Harry would choose him to receive his things. Trust a goblin to judge your every move.

"Right, do that then please." Harry watched Ragnar pull a sheaf of parchment from some unseen drawer and set it upon the desk between them.

"You must sign the deed. I shall take care of the rest."

"Oh, yeah, of course." Awkwardly picking up the quill offered to him – he had gotten accustomed to writing with muggle pens again – Harry shuffled closer to the desk and scribbled down his chicken-scratch signature. His handwriting was a million times better with a pen – quills were undoubtedly harder to hold.

"So, ah, I want you to give him a key to Sirius's vault too. I know he won't accept it if I just sign the whole thing over to him, but at least that way if he needs to he can access the money." Harry didn't know why he felt the need to explain himself to the goblin, but it was all just pouring out; justification, he supposed, for his apparently unheard of behaviour.

"That can be arranged," Ragnar assured him, procuring another piece of parchment for Harry to produce his illegible signature on.

Vaguely overwhelmed Harry simply went through the actions dictated to him by the goblin, putting a possibly unwise amount of trust in Ragnar.

Noting Harry's discomfort Ragnar placed a small, intricately carved box on his desk and opened the lid so that its contents were facing him, rather than the distressed young man.

"Perhaps it would be prudent to conclude our meeting sooner rather than later," Ragnar suggested, voice softer than before, perhaps sensing the exhaustion that Harry felt, a consequence of marching on when in vicious pain.

"Yeah, sounds good," Harry echoed quietly, eyeing the box with a suppressed apprehension.

"These are your family rings," Ragnar informed Harry, seeing the question in darkened emerald eyes. "Proof of your status as Head of those families."

Harry physically recoiled in his seat. He didn't  _want_  any more responsibility thrust on to him, especially not in the Wizarding World!

"Why?" He muttered dejectedly, completely pushing his hood away from his head and looking up at the ceiling, as if answers were carved into it.

"You may not wish for them right now Mister Potter, but one day it may aid you to be able to show such a status. What is it you humans say? 'Better safe than sorry'?"

Lowering his gaze to the goblin Harry levelled him with an unimpressed stare.

"Sure…" He acquiesced, disbelievingly. Tentatively, Harry reached out and grasped the box, pulling it closer. Inside sat two signet rings, intricately detailed with the crests of the Black and Potter families, respectively. Harry hadn't even known he  _had_  a family crest. "I don't have to wear them, do I? I don't wear rings…"

"It would be wisest to keep them on your person," Ragnar pointed out, business-like once more.

"Mmm..." Hummed Harry, poking the Potter ring. Perhaps if he wore them around a chain...

Reaching under his shirt Harry pulled out the silver chain he had taken to wearing. Hanging from it already was a curious pendant, a symbol known only to Harry in this part of England. It was an anti-possession charm. With Crowley watching over him – or whatever it was that the demon was trying to play at by bloody well branding him – Harry wasn't sure if other demons would attempt it, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Not like he made a show of informing people about demons anyway.

"Can I just put them on here?" He asked Ragnar, eyes guarded as he noticed the way the goblin was scrutinising his charm.

"It is acceptable. First however, you must put the rings on your finger in order to claim them."

Puzzled, but seeing no reason not to comply, Harry removed the ornate rings from the decorative box and placed both of them on fingers on his left hand. For a moment nothing happened, and he felt a little silly, much as he had done when attempting the crossroads summoning, but then there was a pin-prick, a very slight, momentary pain, and the over-sized rings shrunk to fit securely to his fingers, his magic reaching out to coat them.

That might be a problem once he no longer had a magical signature, he mused distractedly as he pulled the rings off, setting them back in the box so that he could unclasp his chain. Once more Ragnar's eyes honed in on the charm, and Harry found it hard to ignore as he set about looping the cool metal through the rings – one on either side of the charm, to even it out.

When Harry put the chain back around his neck Ragnar's gaze shifted slightly, and Harry quickly brushed his hair down over his neck again. It was too late.

"Demons are nasty creatures Mister Potter, you would be wise not to show that to anyone, if you can at all avoid it," the goblin instructed him.

"I- yes... What? No. I don't want to know."

Unsettled, Harry shifted in his seat, one hand in his pocket, cradling his shrunken trunk. Goblins knew about demons. Goblins knew about  _Crowley_ , because there had been a deep, knowing look in Ragnar's eyes that accompanied his warning. Goblins knew about the supernatural.

And to be honest? That terrified Harry. It really did.

 


	8. Preparations

**Chapter 8 – Preparations:**

From the moment Ragnar noticed his charm Harry had been on edge, waiting in terror for someone to come after him, to lock him up. Because Ragnar  _knew_  things that he had no right to know, and a deep hatred of wizards for easy justification.

But nothing happened.

Ever the compliant bank manager Ragnar had followed Harry's requests to the letter, even pouring all of his wizarding money into a muggle bank account without so much as a single complaint – he was still waiting for the backlash on that one, surely the goblins couldn't be happy with him taking that much money away from the bank.

Paper trails? No problem.

Harry was actually pretty amazed at what the goblins could accomplish. He knew he'd never be able to lay a convincing paper trail, even if he could get access to the appropriate places. Admin just wasn't his thing. Never had been.

All Harry had said was that he wished he were able to sit his GCSEs – he would like to have had  _some_  sort of muggle qualification, considering he was going to spend the rest of his life living among them (unless, god forbid, the Ministry started a proper sector about Wizard-Muggle interaction) – and Ragnar had immediately set about creating a paper trail with enough detail and information to convince the Education Board that he should be allowed to sit them (the 'official' story was that he had been home-schooled past the age of 11, because making fake school records was riskier than other things).

Goblins, going against normal perceptions, kept a close eye on the situation in the Muggle world, and were completely up-to-date on how things worked. Perhaps it was one of the reasons they looked down upon wizards? Harry wouldn't blame them for it, he had felt similarly since the moment he stepped foot in Diagon Alley for the first time. Robes? Quills? Really?

Actually  _sitting_  the exams was another story altogether. Over the last two years Harry had buried most of his self-taught 'practical' muggle knowledge beneath layers and layers of myths and facts about the supernatural. Sifting through all of his memories to find the information he actually needed for the exams was more difficult than he had originally anticipated, and to be honest, he almost failed.

Nowadays Harry was living in a flat in Surrey, far away from Privet Drive. There was a niggling feeling he had that convinced him to move near the church, to keep an eye on it. It wasn't that he actually thought any demon would bother to go to enough effort to find out that Harry had visited the church all of two times and decide to massacre everyone, but he felt he owed Father Anderson to stand guard while he was still in the country.

Not that he planned on staying in the country all that much longer.

It had taken a month to sort out his GCSEs, and he had decided not to contact Crowley again until he was certain he could settle fairly well into muggle life. That would take time, despite his hefty experience living with the Dursleys – the way he lived with them was hardly a good thing to model his life after.

For the time being, he had taken over the running of Dragomir's Bookstore in lieu of something to spend his time doing. It was convenient as well, since he could sit on a stool behind the counter all day – his muscles still cramped up randomly every now and again from his prolonged exposure to the cruciatus; he was getting over it thanks to the potions, but it was slower going than he had anticipated.

Being an out-of-the-way second-hand bookstore meant that Harry didn't get a hell of a lot of customers, but that suited him just fine. He spent a lot of time on his hands and knees in the back room, scrubbing the demon traps off of the floorboards and off the walls. Harry could have used magic, but that was lazy, and he needed something to occupy himself with. Even reading could get tedious occasionally.

Dragomir's shop did have an interesting collection of texts though, which, through magical protection, hadn't been stolen during the period of inactivity in the store. Harry was grateful for the lack of customers, because it meant there were more books for him to choose from to add to his own personal collection. He knew Dragomir wouldn't mind. In fact, he'd probably have protested Harry 'wasting' any time running the store at all.

If Harry was honest with himself he was stalling. Saying he was stalling for time wasn't quite correct, because one way or another a year from April 6th was the maximum amount of time available to him. Part of him was stalling for information – when was word going to get out about Voldemort? What would happen? Would they try and track him down? Would they hate him? Have parades?

Harry couldn't see the wizards having a parade, not even in celebration.

But if they tracked him down, what would it be for?

While he had made peace with his desire to leave the country, he couldn't completely dispel the curiosity that dwelled within him. Would they try and force him into the limelight? Probably. And that's what he didn't want. That's why he could never go back there.

Another thing Harry couldn't imagine was them welcoming him with open arms once they realised he was a squib – which he would be, sooner than later. He'd heard whispers of what happened to squibs – they weren't appreciated. They didn't deserve the magical community when they held no magic.

Backwards. Wizards were truly backwards people.

And life kept moving on around him.

* * *

As the months passed, Harry became aware of a number of demons in the area. They were never around for long, obviously dropping by for some soul collection or another before disappearing back to wherever it was that demons went when they had free time.

There were two distinct types of demon, Harry had come to realise, because they acted in very different ways.

Walking from the corner store to his apartment one afternoon Harry had noticed a businessman heading in the opposite direction. It wouldn't have been worth noticing if it wasn't for the fact that his eyes had momentarily flashed black. Instinctively Harry had tensed up, and he quickened his pace ever so slightly. The demon, for it was definitely a demon, noticed this, and took a moment to actually examine Harry, step not faltering in the slightest. When black-tinted eyes reached his neck Harry had automatically raised his hand to cover the mark Crowley had made. The demon blinked once, eyes fixated on Harry's hand, before the businessman sneered down at him and walked off.

Upon arriving at his apartment Harry still hadn't figured out if the sneer was mocking, disgusted or a challenge. He wasn't sure he wanted to find out.

The second type of demon was even more confusing.

A chipper, voluptuous young woman had been passing by  _Broken Pieces_  as Harry was locking up one afternoon. Something about her presence had sent a chill down Harry's spine, so he watched her reflection in the window with careful scrutiny. She looked normal enough – olive skin, jet-black hair piled in a neat bun at the base of her skull – but her aura was way out of whack. (Muggles, Harry had noticed, while lacking the uniqueness of individual magical signatures, still had a distinct  _feel_  about them, if you looked hard enough). Their eyes met through the reflection, and Harry wasn't the only one who froze. Red bled into the woman's irises as she stood, frozen, gaze locked on Harry. They flickered uncertainly up and down his form. He knew the moment she saw his brand – as he had started calling it in his head – because her eyes widened, first in shock, then in fear, before she disappeared in the blink of an eye.

It was the combination of the two that had Harry finally deciding on the meaning of the cryptic symbol marring his neck.

In the simplest of terms, it read something along the lines of "Property of Crowley, hands off". Crude, and rather barbaric from a human standpoint, but apparently it was effective. Although, if the sneering demon was anything to go by, Crowley didn't exactly have the respect from other demons that Harry had assumed he would have, being the so-called 'King of the Crossroads' and all.

While it was only a very small mystery solved, and not even one of any real importance, Harry felt good to have finally accomplished something away from the Wizarding World.

* * *

At the end of five months of recuperation Harry felt it was imperative he get a real move on with the rest of his life.

First stop?

Gringotts.

Harry had avoided the bank since his overwhelming visit all those months ago – absently, he toyed with the chain around his neck which now held his family rings. Now he was facing the inevitable return trip. There was nothing pleasant about the thought.

Once again Harry slipped into Diagon Alley, hood pulled forward, shoulders slouched, hands in his pockets. Wearing a hood at a time like this – they were finally aware of Voldemort's death – was bound to draw suspicion, so he was trying to downplay any attention by playing the moody muggleborn or the particularly rebellious pureblood teenager. All of his clothes were muggle, and quite obviously so – the robes had been the first thing he got rid of when he left, he definitely wasn't going to miss them. A Death Eater would never stoop so low, even for the sake of a disguise. It would be an insult to their pureblood dignity.

People filled the streets, more-so than he had been expecting, but he managed to manoeuvre his way through them without drawing too much attention to himself. A young boy had given him an odd look, but it might have been because of the band logo on the back of his hoodie.

Gringotts was as intimidating and impressive as ever – not that he had expected anything to have changed since his last visit. The goblins sneered down their long noses at everyone who passed through the doors.

Griphook, Harry noted with slight dread, wasn't anywhere to be seen, so he would have to engage the assistance of someone else. It wasn't that he was afraid of goblins, it was simply so much easier to go through the familiar goblin, because Griphook didn't sneer down at him as much as all the others.

If Harry was perfectly honest, he didn't actually need to be at Gringotts. All of his paperwork had gone through successfully – not that he had ever really doubted the goblins – so he could, and would, get his passport the regular muggle way. It was something he needed to get used to anyway. Once he left he wouldn't be able to rely on the goblins for all of his paperwork.

Harry was cutting his ties with this final visit. He needed to say goodbye, in a way. There wasn't really anyone he was saying goodbye  _to_ , he didn't even dare leave a note for Remus, or perhaps the ever-persistent Hermione.

He had nothing against them, they had simply drifted to the edge of importance in his life. Sure, he would miss them – Ron, not so much; he had given up pretty easily when Harry began secluding himself – but in order to really have a fresh start he needed to get away from them altogether.

Waving down a teller Harry requested to see Ragnar once more.

The visit was short and awkward, Harry feeling a bit sentimental and Ragnar probably not having the same patience with him now that he was no longer technically a customer at Gringotts. Still, when Harry walked out of the bank for what he swore was the last time, he felt more prepared somehow.

* * *

Apart from filling out his passport application – which he did immediately, under his new assumed name, Harry Evan Peverell – the next thing Harry needed to do was settle his deal with Crowley. He still had time left before the agreed last-chance date, but Harry decided it was better to do it on his terms, rather than Crowley's.

Harry was half tempted to go back to the crossroads where his summoning box was buried for this next encounter, but decided against it. He had no clue what might happen to his body once his magic was gone; not to mention he would have to figure out how to get back to Surrey from there on his own.

No, doing it in his own apartment was the safest option, and he wouldn't even insult the demon by putting up any – extra – demon traps. There was one under the doormat, but he couldn't see Crowley coming in the front door. If he did, well, bad planning on Crowley's behalf, because honestly? He should have expected Harry to be a little paranoid.

It was November and it was starting to get bitterly cold when Harry was finally ready. Holed up in his apartment one evening Harry was pacing back and forth across his living room.

Crowley hadn't really given him any instructions on how to contact him, and Harry couldn't be bothered looking through all of his books for the right spell to summon him. Instead, Harry was rubbing his hand over Crowley's brand and contemplating the situation.

Absorbed as he was in his pacing he initially failed to notice the new addition to his living room. It wasn't until he almost tripped over carefully polished black dress shoes that he came to a stop and actually took in Crowley's form draped comfortably across his armchair.

"Well, that works I guess," Harry commented awkwardly, tugging on his hair.

"Well you called, I answered." Crowley flashed him a winning smile, which Harry didn't believe for a second was genuine.

"Yes, well... yes." Suddenly Harry found himself at a loss for words, so he sat down on the couch for something to do with himself.

"Let me guess," Crowley drawled after a stretched silence, "You wanted to pay your debt?"

Mutely, Harry nodded as Crowley scrutinised his nails.

"Good, good, that's good."

Utterly lost, Harry picked at the fraying hem of his t-shirt, waiting for some sort of explanation or action or  _something_.

"Let's see then," Crowley muttered, surging to his feet and marching across the room to stand before the couch. "I've never done this before, obviously." A thoughtful look passed over his face for a moment. "It might hurt."

Without any further warning, Crowley plunged his hand into Harry's chest. The poor wizard grunted and stared wide-eyed up at Crowley's face, contorted in concentration, so he wouldn't have to look at the  _hand that was inside his freaking chest!_

Pain erupted from his core. There was a frightening tugging sensation in his chest and he had to fight his reflexive reaction to curl up and fight the intrusion. This shouldn't be happening,  _why had he agreed to this?_ Dying would be less painful.

And then suddenly it was all over, and Harry collapsed against the back of the couch, gasping in huge lungfuls of air, his body desperately scrambling to fill the emptiness.

_Empty._

There was a gaping hole inside of him. Had magic really had that much of an effect on his life up until this point?

Dark eyes were watching him, an odd sheen to them, as Crowley held a softly glowing orb in his hand. Was that his magic?

Harry's fingers twitched, his hand wanting to reach out and take it back. This wasn't fair, Crowley couldn't just  _take_  it. Surely there had to be rules.

 _But there are,_  his subconscious reminded him,  _and you accepted his terms. This is all on you. It was your choice. Now face the consequences._


	9. Re-adjusting and Moving

**Chapter 9 – Re-adjusting and Moving:**

Being incapable of using magic, Harry soon discovered, was completely different that simply choosing not to. When by choice he could still feel his magic flowing through him, and his senses were enhanced. Without it he felt unfathomably, irrevocably empty. Never in his wildest dreams had he expected it to be so  _bad._

It had been two weeks since Crowley's life-changing visit, and Harry had barely moved from his couch. There was a sense of loss emanating from the lounge now, and Harry found it so fitting he couldn't bring himself to leave.

Lost.

Harry had lost something unthinkably important, and he would never get it back.

The empty feeling in his core had settled down some in the fourteen days, seven hours and thirty-seven minutes since it began, but even so, there remained a soul-deep (and when did he start believing in souls? Probably around the same time he met his first demon...) ache that refused to dissipate. In theory Harry knew he was being pathetic. He knew he needed to hurry up and leave already before someone got it in their head to track him down (and he wished them luck, Harry doubted tracking spells would have anywhere near the same potency with only an echo of his magical signature to work with). Moving on, starting a new life, hadn't that been the plan?

He had been supposed to leave Britain. Go to Asia, America, Oceania. Anywhere that wasn't Europe. Where had all of his determination gone?

_To Hell, most likely._

Harry's cellphone went off and he growled lowly in the back of his throat. It was a trick he was playing on himself. Set as alarm to go off once a day to force him to get off the couch every now and again. Sometimes he ignored it, but it would get louder and louder as time passed, and he wasn't so far gone that he wanted to annoy the older woman in the apartment next door.

After blinking blearily up at the ceiling for several long moments Harry forced himself up, narrowly avoiding stepping on his forgotten glasses as he shuffled through to the kitchen.

 _Why am I even doing this?_  He wondered, fishing his phone out of his messenger bag and turning the alarm off.  _Why do I still bother?_

Because honestly? It would be so much easier to just give in to the emptiness, to find a demon that hated Crowley who Harry could beg death from – he didn't believe for one second he could kill himself, he wasn't that strong.

Voldemort was dead. That'd been all he wanted. Sure, starting over would have been nice, but he'd done what he wanted to do...

His morbid musings were interrupted by the doorbell. He was of half a mind to ignore it; he had every other time. But then the yelling started.

"Harry Evan Peverell I know you're in there! You had better open this door right now or I'm going to pick the lock!"

Completely shocked Harry dropped his phone to the floor, walked to the front door and, after undoing all the locks, threw it wide open.

In his doorway, bobby pin in hand, was Cassidy Butcher, his 43 year old neighbour. Normally he worried when she started showing off her lock-picking skills – Harry was pretty sure she was on the wrong side of the law – but today he just stared blankly at her.

Cassidy gave him a quick once-over, taking note of his appearance – wrinkled clothes, hair messier than normal, no glasses, massive black bruises beneath his eyes – and frowned deeply, scrunching her nose up in thought.

It wasn't hard to tell that he hadn't really left his apartment recently. There was mail stacked up next to the door, and Harry's face had gained a slightly more gaunt appearance, the sort one would associate with starvation. Bloodshot eyes could barely focus on her, and he hadn't bothered putting his glasses on, so he wasn't fussed about being  _able_  to see, not more than necessary to manoeuvre around the apartment without walking into too many things.

Placing one hand on her hip Cassidy huffed, narrowed sky blue eyes, and gestured flippantly with the bobby pin. She might not be nearly as young as Harry, but boy was she stubborn.

"Turn around and go to bed." She demanded, squatting to collect Harry's abandoned mail, fixing him with her piercing gaze the entire time. Harry blinked down at her, uncomprehending. "Right now young man! Quick march!" Cassidy waved her hands at him, ushering him inside, and closed the door behind her.

* * *

Cassidy Butcher took an unexplained leave of absence from work and practically moved in to Harry's apartment, adamant that she would get him back to a healthier condition.

She essentially stood vigil over him for an entire month before she felt Harry's mental state was stable enough for her to leave him alone for long periods of time.

There had been one point during her stay when she walked in on Harry attempting to summon a demon – she hadn't wanted to ask what he was doing, but she knew it couldn't be healthy and so made a note of what he had gathered and hid the rest of it. Luckily for her none of the demons had been willing to respond to him – warned off by Crowley? – or she would have walked in on something a hundred times worse.

But with Christmas literally right around the corner Harry had suddenly snapped back to himself.

It wasn't that he was over it – far from it – but, at the very least, he believed Cassidy deserved a better Christmas gift than having to look after him over the holiday season. Acting like he felt better than he really did was a skill he had perfected long ago, and he was using it again now – for the first time in quite a while, since there hadn't been anyone to hide from for a long time.

"Come  _on_  Dee," Harry whined good-naturedly as he watched Cassidy cook his obligatory 'healthy' meal of the day. "I'm  _fine_. Didn't you say your little brother was going to be in town over Christmas? Spend some time with him; do your creepy research thing on his current girlfriend,  _whatever_ , just get out some."

"If Nathan brings his fiancée that's more of an argument for me to stay right where I am," She pointed out lightly, jabbing the knife she was currently using in Harry's direction to emphasise her point. Rolling his eyes Harry forced out a laugh – it felt hollow, but he pushed the thought to the back of his mind.

"Don't be mean Dee, Nathan's been dying to see you for ages."

"And how on Earth would you know that?"

"You're the one who gave him my phone number. He texts me incessantly when you're ignoring him. It's pathetic."

Cassidy smirked.

"Fine, I suppose I should spend some time with the family," She acquiesced, serving up the massive omelette on two plates. "But what are you going to do?"

"Cassidy, don't. You know I don't have any family, and no, I'm  _not_  going to let you and Nathan drag me into your time together, it wouldn't be fair."

It wasn't that he didn't like Cassidy or Nathan; he did, he really did. But he'd managed to pull himself together enough to think clearly, even if he didn't feel right, and he couldn't possibly leave while she was still hovering around everywhere.

"Well, it you're sure..." She settled down across the table from Harry and started eating, somewhat subdued.

Harry smiled sadly at her, picking at his omelette. Cassidy was like the mother he'd never had – although she would hit him if she ever heard him say it, she didn't like thinking about her age – and Nathan was the cheery Uncle. His heart contracted painfully, and he knew he would miss them dearly once he was gone, but he just couldn't stay. There were too many bad memories haunting the place, and even if the ache never healed Harry knew that he didn't have a chance in hell of recovering mentally if he didn't get away from the 'scene of the crime'.

Harry didn't know, exactly, where he wanted to go, but he had to go soon, and he had to be quick about it. If Cassidy caught wind of what he was planning she wouldn't let him out of her sight ever again. Nothing good would come from further entrapment in his own home.

* * *

Nathan and his fiancée arrived in a flurry of activity, most of which Harry managed to avoid getting dragged into. He didn't manage to talk his way out of dinner on the 21st, but by then he was setting his plans in motion.

Because he knew Cassidy would be ridiculously busy, Harry bought tickets for a random flight to the US on the 24th December, Christmas Eve. While keeping under her radar Harry packed away all of the books scattered across his apartment in his magically expanded messenger bag. The few other possessions he wished to keep with him, along with the majority of his wardrobe, were thrown higgledy-piggledy into the suitcase he had bought to replace his very conspicuous school trunk.

That was the easy part.

Sneaking out to a taxi with his bags was going to be the real challenge.

Though it was only his first Christmas time in the apartment block, Cassidy had come to the understanding that he had no family – none who he kept in contact with anyway – so he knew he couldn't use that as an excuse as to why he was leaving. The best way would be to time it while she was out, but he couldn't change the time of the flight, so he'd have to make do with what he was given.

Dodging around Cassidy and Nathan over the last few days before Christmas Eve was more difficult than Harry had expected. If he actually stayed at home they tended to simply barge in – there was something odd about their family, everyone seemed to have a way with lock-picking – so he was actually forced to spend a larger amount of time out in London than he normally would have.

Wandering the streets of Surrey gave him time to think over his situation, even as he put his plan into action. He had no real plan of action once he was in the States. He figured he'd just drive around until he found somewhere that seemed like a good place to settle down.

There wasn't much else he  _could_  do. He had no practical skills other than experience running a book store, so it hardly mattered where he ended up. Unless he figured out or bothered to open his own business somewhere he'd likely end up working at some convenience store somewhere – he didn't need to, but he'd definitely need something to keep him occupied during the day.

* * *

Christmas Eve rolled around quickly, with Harry caught between Nathan, Cassidy and the streets of Surrey. Being as covert as he possibly could, early on that morning Harry sneaked his things out of his apartment and into a waiting taxi.

Getting an early ride in and spending hours waiting at the airport was better than risking getting caught, and in the early afternoon Harry found himself on a plane to San Francisco, a whole world away from everything he knew.


	10. Hunters

**Chapter 10 – Hunters:**

_March 1999:_

Okay, so maybe Harry's driver's license was fake – he hadn't had the time to get a legitimate one! - but it seemed like he could drive a hell of a lot better than some of the people on the highway. Experienced drivers too, not an L-plate in sight! It was almost as though every single person in the area either had somewhere really important that they had to get to, so they resorted to reckless speeding, or they were drifting aimlessly and driving ridiculously slowly.

Of course, it could just have been that Harry was feeling rather irritable as of late. He wasn't yet used to spending so much time driving, and there was still so much that he didn't  _really_  understand about the muggle world, especially America. Not to mention he had stopped in at an internet café the day before and checked his emails.

In retrospect he should have expected it, but even after three months he was still being inundated with emails from Nathan and Cassidy wondering where he was, if he was alright etcetera etcetera. In his heart he knew he had no right to criticise them for worrying about him; he had, after all, simply up and disappeared on them. That's why, even though he never replied, he forced himself to read each and every single email they sent him.

They pained him, but at the same time it was still nice to know that someone out there cared for him (and with the occasional owl he noted that looked too much like a post owl for comfort, he had to hope that they never bumped into Remus, or he'd be doomed if they ever tracked him down).

Harry couldn't figure out what he wanted to do with his new life. Hell, he couldn't even decide where he wanted to live! He'd spent the last three months between the road and a handful of motels, never really staying any place for longer than a week. Nothing had appealed to him as of yet. There was a niggling part of him that said maybe he didn't want to settle down, because settling down meant getting a boring normal job, and that part of him that felt he needed to save people didn't approve of such a mundane option.

The problem there was that Harry didn't know how to save people any more. The most he could do would be exorcising demons, but only the stupid, low-level ones, and most people didn't believe in demons anyway, and he could hardly put an advert in the phonebook, "Harry Peverell, Demon Specialist".

Frustrated, Harry smacked the steering wheel of his car and bit his lip.

_What am I doing?_

Sometimes Harry wished he could just throw a dart at a map and go wherever it landed and just live there, but he knew he'd never be able to.

And that was why, though he was beginning to hate driving, he was still doing it.

If Harry was to be completely honest, he wasn't heading to Colorado because he thought he might be able to settle down there. No, there had been some weird stuff happening there lately, according to news, and so Harry was heading for Gunnison.

He shouldn't go near it, he knew he shouldn't. All he had were his books, a knife, and the gun he'd somehow managed to smuggle over from England. Just because he had them, however, didn't mean he was particularly proficient at  _using_  either of them. Sure, if you pointed a gun at a wizard you'd likely get a pretty clean shot, experience or no, because they wouldn't know what it was and therefore wouldn't feel the need to move out of the way. Humanoid monsters though? They lived in the muggle world, not the magical. They weren't stupid. Harry's be more likely to kill some innocent bystander than actually get a hit in on anything that didn't want to be hit.

He felt so completely  _useless_  without his magic...

_Damn. I managed not to think about it for almost two months... I suppose it was only a matter of time._

Harry was trying desperately hard not to think about the situation that led to his presence in America, but sometimes he slipped up. He hated feeling useless, and he hated that there was no-one he could blame but himself.

Freaking out had happened during his stay in Concord in January. When rational thought had finally broken through the 'holy-crap-I'm-empty' haze clouding his mind he'd taken a moment – make that four days – to sit back and ruminate on the possible consequences of his actions.  _Why_  the  _hell_  did he give his magic to a freaking  _demon?!_  That was pretty bad planning, even for him.

There had been no thought of hesitation when he made the deal – hell, he wouldn't have minded if Crowley had wanted the regular old 'I'll-be-back-for-your-soul-in-ten-years' thing. He would have accepted even if Crowley had confessed to wanting his soul in a year rather than ten. At the time, anything was a fair payment for destroying Voldemort once and for all.

_King of the Crossroads you idiot!_

It was likely best for his sanity to not try and imagine what sort of atrocities Crowley might be able to commit with his magic (and that was a thought. Would his magical signature still come up on Ministry radars when it was in Crowley's possession? It would almost be funny to see Aurors try and take the demon on for using magic in front of muggles. Almost).

_Focus damn it!_

Sighing Harry grabbed his water bottle with one hand and gulped some down. He needed to stay focussed on what he was doing, rather than on the past, or he was going to crash.

* * *

Gunnison, Colorado was both different and completely the same as every other place Harry had been to. The moment he stepped foot in the town he knew he wouldn't stay for very long. It just wasn't right. Not to mention the weird vibe it gave off – though that might have been his imagination acting up because of the news reports.

Mentally exhausted Harry pulled his car into the parking lot of the first motel he came across and booked a room for a week. If no-one else came to check out the situation and he couldn't figure it out within a week then there was no point staying any longer anyway.

_Where did all my determination to do the right thing go?_

Ignoring his own pessimism Harry grabbed his suitcase and his messenger bag and lugged them to his new room. It was nothing fancy – motels never were, especially when you picked them at random – but it wasn't the worst place he'd ever stayed either. Far from it. The bed was in good condition, there were no mysterious stains on the carpet, the curtains or the wallpaper, and nothing appeared to be broken.

"Good enough," Harry exhaled, dropping his things on the ground inside the door, shutting said door behind him and flopping down on the bed. The one thing he liked about American motels was their obsession with big beds. At times like this it was a blessing in disguise.

He was asleep in minutes.

* * *

It was late evening when Harry awoke with a start. There was no real reason for it. No loud noises, no-one was breaking in to his room. Harry's 'sixth-sense' was so crap it was basically non-existent these days so it was nothing like that either. No, after spending so much time all over the place being up at all hours he had yet to adjust himself to lengthy periods of sleep.

Today that would become a useful thing.

As Harry wandered around his room making himself a cup of tea – he had yet to acquire a taste for coffee – he noticed someone crossing the car park in the dark. There was no hesitance in their stride, so they spent long periods of time wandering around in the dark – night-vision was an acquired skill.

Normally Harry wouldn't have paid it any attention – what business was it of his if some local teenager or what not sneaked out to a pub or something? But a focussed squint revealed a slight limp and a slightly hunched figure that wouldn't normally be present in someone that young. Not to mention they were actually leaving the motel, rather than just cutting across the parking lot.

That, combined with what he had been hearing about Gunnison – which, admittedly, wasn't much – spurred him into action. Suddenly glad he had fallen asleep in his clothes Harry poured the rest of his tea down the sink, grabbed his runic knife, shoved it down the side of his boot, grabbed his room key and slipped out of his room.

It took Harry several moments, after shutting his door, to relocate the figure in the dark. Something told him it probably wasn't such a good idea to follow someone in the dark like this, but he'd never paid much heed to those sorts of feelings. Almost everything he did was dangerous, so what difference did it make?

For a moment, as Harry followed the figure through the dark, he could have sworn he had been noticed. His mark had stopped and looked around, and Harry had frozen in his tracks. But nothing happened, other than a barely-noticeable irritable grunt.

It took another ten minutes of walking through the increasingly dark night for anything to happen. They had headed out of town, in the direction of the run-down old house Harry had vaguely noted on his way in. It hadn't seemed anything special at the time, in fact it had looked more than definitely abandoned and ready for demolition or something similar.

By passing through solitary streetlights Harry had managed to catch a better glimpse of the person he was tailing. He had been correct in his assumption that it wasn't some kid sneaking around. It was a man, much older than Harry's measly 18 years. He was dark-skinned, somewhat reminiscent of the ever-silent presence of the Slytherin, Zabini, and he held himself warily, as though expecting to be attacked at any moment, but he also looked war-hardy, like he would take anything that  _did_  attack him head on and send them packing.

Part of Harry had started telling him to leave again shortly after seeing all this, but he couldn't bring himself to. This man, with all his harsh worldly experience, might have the answers to what was going on in Gunnison. That wasn't something he was going to give up on without a fight.

* * *

It was a long night full of new and unexpected revelations for Harry. For some reason, the man he had followed waited until  _after_  Harry had witnessed him murdering every single person...  _thing_... that resided in the run-down house to acknowledge him.

Now, Harry had never actually seen a vampire before, but he was pretty sure the vampires in Magical Britain didn't look anything like the vampires he had just encountered. These vamps had a whole mouth full of sharp, jagged fangs that made Harry's blood run cold.

Thank Merlin he hadn't gone after them himself. He would have been a goner.

"Now then," Harry's apparent saviour began in a gruff voice, wiping his blood-soaked blade down on a hanging curtain. "Who are you, what are you, and what do you want?"

Harry was dumbstruck. What was he? Well, he supposed, in whatever line of work the man obviously had, it might be quite a relevant question. Nervous, Harry ran his hand along his upturned jacket collar.

"I'm Harry," he paused for a moment, but figured there was no harm to be done, and added "Harry Peverell." It was his muggle name, so if the man turned out to just be a psychopathic murderer and wanted to track him down it would probably work, but it was still a heap safer than using his real name.

"And?"

"I, uh, I don't know what you want me to say, but I sure as hell ain't one of those... vampires?"

"But why are you  _here_?"

"Ah... Well, you see, I was actually investigating  _this_ ," Harry gestured to the decapitated vampires – and why were they having this conversation there? "Which is why I'm here in Gunnison. As to why I'm  _here_ , well, I saw you from my motel room and was a bit suspicious. Turns out I was right to be, but maybe for the wrong reason."

The man raised one dark eyebrow at him and stared him down.

"What?" Harry asked, more standoffishly than he would have liked.

"You haven't run away screaming, and you haven't fainted, or even tried to deny what you've seen. That's impressive kid. You've got guts."

"...Thanks?"

"So," he dusted off an old wooden chair and sat down, gesturing for Harry to do the same. "I can see you aren't from around here kid. You ever heard of hunters?"

Harry frowned, carefully taking a seat on something that didn't look like it would collapse under his weight and wasn't covered in blood.

"I'm assuming you don't mean people like deer hunters. I take it you're a hunter?"

"Yep. The name's Rufus. Seasoned hunter of the supernatural."

Harry's eyes widened and he took a moment to truly look at Rufus.

"You still haven't fled yet. That's surprising in someone your age. You don't seem like you've got any freaky vengeances, so what's your deal?"

Though Rufus asked, Harry could tell he didn't necessarily expect an answer. Which was good, because Harry didn't have one.

They talked long into the night, edging around personal topics and giving short, half-answers to others. They weren't there to make friends. But Harry did learn a thing or two about hunters.

If he had his information right, it was hunters who dealt with things like demons in the States.

Harry wasn't sure if he was cut out for the life of a hunter – he would certainly need some sort of training if that's what he wanted to do with himself – but he knew now where he could go to get more information. Rufus had mentioned some place in Nebraska that he had referred to simply as 'The Roadhouse', which was some sort of hunter bar.

Harry knew where he was going to head next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been pointed out to me that L-plates aren't really a thing in the US. It's easy to forget that different countries have different things. Basically, L-plates are stickers you have on your car when you're on your learner's license. Hence, L-plate.


	11. The Harvelles

**Chapter 11 – The Harvelles:**

_May 1999:_

Nebraska was a big place.

Harry stayed out his week in Gunnison, despite the mysterious older hunter moving on straight away. It had given him a chance to absorb what he had witnessed and heard. Of course, when it all sunk in, he couldn't resist delving into his books again, and making a long list in his journal about the differences between muggle and magical vampires. He'd have a lot of explaining to do to any hunter that came across his journal, but Harry was innately curious about the differences between similar creatures.

He already had a rather extensive section on ghosts and ghostly apparitions.

When his week in Gunnison ended Harry reluctantly packed away all of his research and headed off for Nebraska.

Harry wasn't afraid to say it again. Nebraska was massive. Looking for a single bar in a whole state with no other information save for the name was a lengthy task. Every single piece of civilisation he came across Harry would stop and hesitantly ask after the Roadhouse. It couldn't be completely off the grid, since Harry didn't imagine the come and go lifestyle of hunters to be all that good for business. Even so, it obviously wasn't very popular either.

'Under the radar'. It seemed like a good policy. Be average, don't stand out. Don't draw attention.

There were times, in Harry's cross-state journey, where he thought he might have stumbled across an in-progress hunt, but he never stuck around long enough to find out. As he was, Harry knew he wouldn't be of much use to them anyway, so it was better that he let them be.

* * *

It was quite by accident, really, when the frazzled teen finally stumbled across the Roadhouse.

Stumbled was the most accurate way to describe it.

All alone in a still fairly new place, with no-one watching over him, Harry had reverted to some of his more childish tendencies, ones ingrained in him by his time with the Dursleys – and boy, wouldn't they be celebrating his disappearance? Not eating for days on end was something his body was used to, but that by no means meant it was good for him.

Eventually, Harry had had no other choice than to pull over at the side of the road. There was a building not too far off, and Harry got out of his car, absently remembering to lock it behind him, and walked unsteadily towards it. Being weak and shaky from days without food, he collapsed in the dirt near the edge of the building and passed out.

* * *

When he woke he was sore everywhere. Phantom pains from the cruciatus raced up and down his legs. He had a massive headache, a combination of dehydration and a result of having hit his head on the ground.

The light burned at his eyes when he opened them, but he ignored the glare and instead simply glanced away from it, examining his surroundings.

Since he could no longer see the sky he deduced he was no longer outside, which he was glad for. He wasn't sure what might have happened to him if he'd been left out there for who-knows-how-long.

Then again...

Harry shot up, wincing as he had spun from the sudden movement. He wasn't outside any more. Who was to say he hadn't been kidnapped? He couldn't think of any plausible reason  _why_  someone would kidnap a teenager from the side of the road, but it was still possible.

His mind was starting to panic, running through all the possible conclusions in his head. That was, until he heard the giggling.

Turning slowly, Harry swung his legs off of the couch he'd been lying on and  _really_  looked at the room. Seated on a desk chair in one corner was a teenage girl, the source of the laughter. She seemed to find Harry's freak out rather amusing. Harry didn't. But he doubted he would have been kidnapped by a young teenager, so he let himself relax some.

"Ah," she started, taking a deep breath to stave off her giggles, "If I were a madman you would be dead already. You don't have very good survival instincts." The pause just before she said madman made Harry think she had been going to say something else, but he dismissed it. It wasn't important.

"Where am I?" Harry only barely avoided tacking 'kid' onto the end of his question, realising it would probably antagonise her. He himself had never been like that, but people around him at Hogwarts had been pretty uppity during fourth year, and that's about how old she looked.

Her dark eyes scrutinised him carefully for a moment, the silence an intimidating reminder that wherever they were, regardless of her age, he was essentially at her mercy.

"You're at the Roadhouse," she said finally, unfolding her arms and using her left hand to brush some of her blonde hair away from her face.

Harry blinked at her, uncomprehending.

"Where?"

"The Roadhouse," she sighed, slumping down in her chair and stretching her legs out in front of her, "The building you collapsed in front of?"

The Roadhouse...

"Like, the Hunter Roadhouse?"

The question slipped over Harry's tongue before he really had a chance to think it over, and he immediately clapped a hand over his mouth, watching her carefully to see what she would make of his exclamation.

"How do you know about that?" she asked, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You're no hunter."

On a better day Harry might have at least feigned annoyance at the assumption, however correct it may be, but his head was killing him and he wasn't in the mood for a game of twenty questions.

"Rufus mentioned it." And before she had a chance to say anything else he asked "Do you think I could have some water? Only, I think I'm going to pass out again."

Still frowning at him, she climbed to her feet and left the room. Harry heard the distinct sound of a lock clicking in to place behind her, so he figured she didn't trust him to be alone now that he was awake.

* * *

When the blonde teen came back she was accompanied by an older woman, who thankfully had the glass of water Harry had requested. He took it from her wordlessly, nodding his thanks, and quickly drank it. It was blessedly cold, but had a slightly odd taste to it.

Harry rolled his eyes.

Of course they would give him holy water.

It wasn't a Hunter bar for nothing.

"Not a demon," he mumbled irritably, shoulders slumping in relief as the pounding in his head lessened to a more bearable level.

"I can see that," the woman commented drily, leaning against the wall and watching him closely. Harry just blinked blearily up at her, glass held loosely between his fingers, and she rolled her eyes.

"Jo, can you look after the bar for me for a while?"

The teen – Jo – scowled, glaring alternately at Harry and the woman, presumably her mother.

"Why? It's not like anyone's out there anyway."

"You know Gordon likes to pop in when you least expect him. Go out front."

Jo crossed her arms across her chest.

"No. I'm the one who found him outside. Even if he's not some demon, he's not a hunter, and he knew about this place. I want to know what's happening!"

"Joanna Beth you go out to the bar right this instant." The woman gestured pointedly at the door, her voice low and steady. It was the sort of voice Mrs Weasley would adopt when telling off the twins. Harry would have obeyed automatically, that sort of conditioning was hard to break out of.

Jo looked for a moment as though she would protest further, but then she spun on her heel and stomped out of the room.

"I'm sorry about her. She gets quite nosy sometimes. But I do need answers."

Harry nodded, leaning back against the couch.

"I suppose introductions wouldn't hurt then. My name's Ellen, and this here is my bar, the Roadhouse, which, as you already know, caters to hunters."

"Harry. And no, I'm really not a hunter." As he leaned forward to place the empty glass on the ground he finally noticed the absence of his things. They had been left in his car... "Is my car still out there?" he asked, trying not to freak out. His entire life was in that car, as sad as that might sound.

"Yeah, don't worry about it kid, it's still where you left it. You don't really get any car thieves out this way – they'd have to have walked all the way out here to bother, and no-one does that."

"That's a relief..." Taking a deep breath Harry launched into a censored retelling of his last few months in America. This was where he wanted to be, and he needed them to trust him if he was going to gain anything from being here. Someone needed to know his story, even if it was far from all of it.


	12. Life at the Roadhouse

**Chapter 12 – Life at the Roadhouse:**

Ellen Harvelle was not as quick to trust as Harry had hoped she would be. Admittedly, it was to be expected, considering the circles she ran in, but Harry was beginning to feel a bit suffocated by her silent distrust. He'd shared his story with her, the nitty-gritty details minus the magic and Crowley, and it was pretty easy to tell he wasn't lying, it was too difficult for him to tell it without emotion.

No-one was that good an actor. No-one would  _bother_  trying that hard just for the trust of one bartender.

He was essentially under some form of house arrest. It wasn't that he had any desire to leave the Roadhouse anyway, but he got the distinct feeling he wouldn't be allowed to. Wherever he went there was always someone keeping an eye on him, be it one of the come-and-go patrons who were apparently of the more trusted variety, or the fourteen year old Jo lurking around corners. It was unsettling, and it meant he could only read the same three books from his messenger bag when he was out of his room, because any more would cause suspicion. There simply wasn't enough room in any of his luggage, or his car, for him to have secreted away so many different books.

On the plus side, after seeing the books Harry had chosen to look through, Jo had become remarkably warmer towards him. Not so much, he suspected, because she wanted to read, but because of what they were about. She wanted to learn more about the supernatural world, just like Harry did. He suspected there was some deeper motive for her, but he wasn't going to pry. Harry knew better than most about secrets.

"Where did you  _get_  those from?" Jo asked one afternoon, peering over his shoulder as Harry sat at one of the tables near the back of the bar, trying to avoid the attention of too many hunters.

"I bought them when I was back home in England. It took a heck of a lot of research to find them, but I think it was worth it."

Jo hummed lightly and shifted again, squinting at a small section of text beneath a diagram.

"Can I borrow one of them?"

Harry paused, one finger drumming against the tabletop. It was an innocent enough question, asked in a casual, off-handed way, but Harry was unsure of whether to grant it. True, he had seen Jo hanging around with some of the hunters who stopped by, had even stumbled across her training in weapons with Gordon, who was about his age, apparently very young for a hunter. And yes, at fourteen she was old enough to decide what she wanted to read.

It was the look he sometimes caught on Ellen's face when she saw her daughter with the other hunters that held Harry back. He didn't want to say 'ask your mother' because he had only just managed to get on Jo's good side, and saying that would instantly ruin all the progress they had made. On the other hand, regardless of whether anyone else could tell, he could see the pain in Ellen's gaze as she watched Jo. He had to decide who it was safer to risk annoying.

"Maybe later," he said eventually, pushing the matter off to one side for the time being. "I'm not sure I'm ready to let them out of my sight just yet."

Jo huffed, a brush of warm air across Harry's neck, as she pulled away and straightened up, crossing her arms. She was quite obviously unsatisfied, but at least she wasn't complaining. It was a good sign. At least, he hoped it was.

"You're a weakling," Jo exclaimed suddenly, shoving Harry's shoulder.

Harry turned halfway in his seat and stared up at her, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. That was no secret. Harry knew he was weak.

"What's your point?"

"Well," Jo stared straight at Harry defiantly. "You should come train with me. Even though I bet I could beat you with my hands tied behind my back."

Harry considered her silently, green eyes narrowed in suspicion behind his glasses.

"What do you mean by training?" Sure, Harry knew she was good with weapons – frighteningly so for someone her age – but that didn't mean he could easily suffer the indignation of being taught how to fight by someone nearly five years younger than him.

Shocked out of her flow, Jo paused for a moment, humming thoughtfully. She sized him up, nodding to herself. It was unnerving.

"Come on a run with me tomorrow morning."

Harry's eyebrow quirked up in amusement at Jo's demanding tone and dismissive attitude. So as long as Jo said it was okay he could go outside? It was a curious notion, but he supposed he'd still be under observation that way.

"Alright."

Harry would soon come to regret agreeing to Jo's workout routine. The girl was fit and ruthless.

* * *

"What are you always reading over there?"

Harry was curled up in a corner booth out in the main bar area almost a month later, exhausted yet again from one of Jo's gruelling runs,  _A Ghostly Encyclopaedia_  spread open on the table in front of him. The name alone would have sent most people running in the other direction, but sometimes the phoniest sounding things had the best tid-bits of information in them. He'd noticed Ellen's gaze shift from suspicious to curious over time, but she had yet to confront him about what it was he actually did.

Wordlessly, still trying to calm his racing heart – Jo was probably laughing her head of somewhere with Gordon, who had dropped by yet again just the day before – Harry flipped the book closed, keeping his finger between the pages as a bookmark.

"Well then," Ellen whistled, arching an eyebrow at him, "Looks like you really know your stuff after all. What exactly is it that you  _do?_ '

It really had only been a matter of time before she asked that. Harry didn't appear to  _do_  anything, but he paid for whatever he could get her to accept, and his card certainly wasn't going to be declining any time soon.

"I read," Harry shrugged tiredly, flipping the book open again as though to demonstrate. "Study. Memorise. You know about the demon problem back home; I suppose I hoped that if I knew what was going on then I might be better equipped to deal with it all."

"But you don't hunt?"

That was a given, seeing that the only time Harry really left the Roadhouse was on fitness excursions with Jo.

"No. I'm a bit too scrawny to be a hunter, don't you think? I haven't got the physical capability to really deal with too much." He'd always been scrawny and he always would be. It was an accepted fact in his life.

"You know, kid, no-one ever said that the only way to fight those buggers was to be a hunter."

Harry tilted his head back, gazing up at the older woman. Sure he had a treasure trove of books, but what good was that to anyone else?

"Jeez..." Ellen shook her head fondly. "For someone who spends so much time with their head buried in books, you can be kinda thick sometimes. You ever take a real good look at any of the hunters who stop by here? They're more of the shoot first ask questions later persuasion; in other words, they aren't necessarily the brightest people around. Sure, they know the basics, they wouldn't be able to kill anything otherwise, but there's so much more out there than most of them know how to deal with."

"So...?"

Harry's mind was coming up blank. His brain was foggy with exhaustion, and he was sure he'd beat himself up over acting so dumb when he was more awake, but he just... couldn't be bothered actually thinking.

"Hey now! Don't you go falling asleep on me while I'm trying to give you life advice!" Ellen's hand darted out and she shook Harry's shoulder, jerking him aware again.

"Can we have this talk later?" Harry asked lazily, eyes heavy as he stared upwards. Ellen rolled her eyes.

"Sure. Just keep it in mind. And maybe you should ask Jo to go easier on you, she'll run you into the ground permanently at this rate."

Harry didn't respond. He was already asleep.

* * *

David was a reasonably young guy, maybe 28, and he'd started frequenting the Roadhouse between jobs just after Harry himself arrived. He was pretty new to the hunting-sphere, but despite being a newbie he seemed to be doing pretty well for himself. At least, that's what Harry gathered.

Eventually Harry had gotten sick of the three books he had on rotation, and switched them out for several others, hoping that no-one called him up on it. No-one did.

One day in mid-August Harry was adding a collection of symbols to his journal from one of his more runic texts when David dropped into a seat across the table, peering oddly at him. Harry glanced up at him through his glasses, pen hovering above the page as he tried to suss out what was happening.

"Umm... Can I help you?" He eventually asked, giving up on trying to out-stare the man. The patrons of the Roadhouse didn't usually interact with him, other than Gordon, but that was mainly Jo's fault. It was an off-putting change of pace. He didn't really like surprises.

"I... Hmm..." David shifted uncomfortably under Harry's scrutiny, scratching the back of his head. Finally he visibly pulled himself together – Harry mentally scoffed, a grown man, afraid of him? Reaching into his pocket he pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper and put it on the table in front of Harry, trying awkwardly to smooth it out some when Harry just stared at it.

"You... ah... Do you know what this symbol means?"

Harry straightened up from his slouch and grabbed the picture, bringing it up to his face. He immediately recognised it as demonic, but wasn't surprised that David had no idea what was what. Even if he  _did_  know a thing or two about demons, which Harry doubted, it wasn't the basics. It wasn't even a demonic sigil, as such. Instead, it was more like a signature – phantom fire rippled across the mark on his neck and he forced himself not to think about it. It wasn't a demon he-

No. Wait.

Squinting, Harry turned the page sideways, ignoring the finger-tapping happening across from him. Impatient hunters.

No, he  _did_  recognise that. Surprisingly. He hadn't thought it real, at the time, but it matched.

Gaap. A demon noble from a side faction down in Hell. Depending on what she wanted, it was probably bad news.

"Well?"

Harry glanced up over the edge of the paper at the impatient exclamation. Ellen had been right; all muscle, no brains.

"This is Gaap's symbol." Harry told him, pushing the paper back across the table. "Apparently she's a handful, but she's cautious. As far as I can tell she's had the same body for the last 400 years. She's not someone you should take lightly."

David rolled his eyes and stood up suddenly, leaving without so much as a 'thank you'.

For a moment Harry was miffed. But then he realised he had just put his ridiculous knowledge to actual, practical use. Had that been what Ellen had been talking about?

Harry was pretty sure he could cope with ungratefulness if he could actually be useful for once.


	13. John Winchester

**Chapter 13 – John Winchester:**

Time passed by rather quickly at the Roadhouse, and before he knew it Harry's 20th birthday had come and gone. Life was never dull there, even when nothing was happening. At the Roadhouse Harry was accepted for who he was – a young man with an obsession with collecting knowledge and a memory bank that could help with just about any problem a Hunter could have. It was the first time in his life that he felt like he truly fit in somewhere.

Sure, when he had magic and attended Hogwarts he had initially felt like he fit in there, because he was with people who shared his abilities and wouldn't call him freak for using them. But that didn't mean he  _fit in._  He was worshipped, idolised and hated all at once for something he couldn't remember. That wasn't fitting in, being one of many but at the same time an individual; that was being in the spotlight.

It had taken him a while to be able to distinguish between the two. At the tender age of 11 anyone who was nice to him was a blessing, regardless of their motivations. What kind of attention-starved kid worries about the hows and whys of friendship?

Here and now, he was accepted by everyone. Sure, maybe it took some time, and a few threats from the now 15 year old Jo, for some of the newer hunters to warm up to him, but Harry actually saw that as a  _good_  thing. It meant that even if they had heard about him on the grape vine that they weren't willing to believe everything they heard, and wanted to check him out for themselves. To be honest, it was that  _lack_  of instantaneous trust that Harry liked the most. It was the complete opposite of the hero-worship he had so often found himself subjected to back in Britain. It made it very hard for him to regret leaving.

"Harry, you lazy sob, come on! I'm not letting all my hard work go to waste because you can't be bothered practising!" He wouldn't miss Jo's training regime though, he thought to himself as he forced himself out of his seat. He might be bloody fit now, but the girl was a hard task-master.

* * *

John Winchester was a name that got tossed around a lot amongst the hunters at the Roadhouse. Harry had only ever heard bits and pieces along the grape vine; the man had never stopped by in person in all the time he had spent there.

It was through the absolutely-not-a-gossip-circle gossip circle of hunters that Harry learned several things about the elusive man; one, that his wife was dead – murdered, by some supernatural beast or another – and two, that he hunted with his two sons. Harry wasn't sure how to feel about the man raising his sons like that, but seeing as he hadn't had the most conventional childhood either he felt like he had no real grounds on which to judge the man. At least he hadn't ditched his kids with some ungrateful relative, or an orphanage. That would have made Harry significantly less inclined to offer aid if it were to be asked of him; he'd done it before, refused to help a hunter that pissed him off some way or another.

He didn't know any dates or specifics about John Winchester; for all he knew his wife could have died last year and his kids could be under ten!

There was nothing concrete in Harry's well of knowledge until one day in November of 2000.

* * *

"For gods sake Jo, just go annoy Shawn or something! You bloody well twisted my ankle yesterday when I agreed to spar with you, and I won't be doing it again any time soon." Harry shifted gingerly on the spot where he stood awkwardly, hovering over Jo as she glared up at him. Gordon had been on a hunting spree without breaks for over a month now, and she was impatient. Though Harry was barely an adequate training partner he'd still been roped in to help, and it hadn't turned out well at all. Of course, Jo wasn't one to take no for an answer; a twisted ankle wasn't her idea of an excusable injury either – and it wouldn't be, for a regular hunter, but Harry wasn't a hunter goddamnit, he shouldn't have to follow the same expectations.

"Jeez, you're such a pain!" She complained, eyeing his ankle sceptically as Harry tried to keep his weight off of it as much as he could. He almost cracked a smile at her attitude – 'pain' was hardly the worst thing she could have said to him.

"Yes yes, I know. Now go and save Shawn from morning alcoholism." Harry made shooing motions with his hands and cracked a smile when she rolled her eyes and stalked off, dragging the older man off of his bar-stool. Spinning carefully on the spot Harry walked slowly over to his regular corner booth, expression blank as he tried to walk with as little limp as possible; it wouldn't do to 'exaggerate' his injury in front of the hunters, who would all tease him mercilessly for it.

Thankfully no-one ever questioned where Harry got all of his books from, because he no longer bothered trying to keep small circulations of visible texts going when he was in the public eye.

Harry sat in uninterrupted silence for over an hour, flipping aimlessly through an older Latin text that he truthfully only understood about half of. Despite his knew reputation hunters preferred trying to make it on their own rather than blatantly asking for help, especially from someone as young as Harry. He understood their reluctance. It sucked and it made his days rather monotonous when no-one was willing to ask for his assistance, but nevertheless he always ensured he appeared available, just in case.

Today his 'just-in-case' policy turned out to be for the best.

Halfway through the day – Shawn was the only hunter around that day, so Harry had been alone in the main section of the Roadhouse for hours – the doors swung open, admitting an older man Harry had never seen before in his life. Ellen was either out back in her office doing stock-take or some such administrative thing, or she was watching over Shawn and Jo's sparring match/lesson – Jo had stamina like no other, and they would be going for hours more as long as no-one forced them to stop.

Generally when caught in similar situations they were Roadhouse regulars, and Harry would ignore them and they him while they either went hunting for Ellen or sneaked themselves a beer from behind the bar – he always took note of them and told Ellen later, there was no point in her being out of pocket because of petty thievery. This was different.

For a moment Harry simply watched the newcomer from his shadowed position, not easily seen directly from the doorway because of the positioning of the various lights and the pool table. He went apparently unnoticed – though in all probability he was simply deemed not dangerous – by the newcomer as they swept their gaze across the bar. They were slightly fidgety – not noticeably so, but Harry could see, had practise seeing, the subtle nuances in his stance that indicated his restlessness.

Decision apparently made for him – Harry never had perfected that useful skill of indifference – Harry raised his right hand into the air slightly, drawing the stranger's attention back to him, and called flatly "Ellen's a bit busy right now, if that's who you're looking for."

The man walked further into the bar, keeping his frame angled towards Harry as he moved, eyes flickering backwards and forwards as though confirming his story.

"Who are you then?"

Harry frowned lightly at the blunt question, tapping his uninjured foot on the floor. It was a pretty standard question for newbies when they encountered him, but it just came out harsher from him.

"I'm Harry. I, ah, well... I live here." Harry gestured awkwardly around him, eventually dropping his hands onto the table and fiddling with the edge of his current reading book instead.

"I see."

Everything that came out of the man's mouth had an extra level of gruffness to it that made it sound angry and suspicious – although it likely  _was_  both those things.

"Is there anything I can help you with?" Harry offered, trying to remain polite in the wake of who could possibly be  _the_  most intimidating character Harry had ever met.

A searching look ensued, followed by the barest twitch of shoulders before he settled himself in the seat opposite Harry, leaning back in the chair.

"Do you know anything about the situation in Valentine?"

Harry blinked. He didn't even know where Valentine  _was_ ; he was hardly a walking atlas.

"I don't have a computer, and we hardly get the newspaper delivered here." He did however have a cellphone now, due to nagging from Jo and certain hunters about wanting to be able to contact him when they weren't nearby.

The man sent him a look that seemed to scream 'imbecile' or 'pathetic', before reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulling out a thick notebook, full of loose bits and pieces. He placed it on the table between them and began flicking through it, but not before Harry caught a glimpse of the name written on the inside cover.

John Winchester.

That was a surprise Harry hadn't seen coming. For one, the man was alone, and for having avoided the Roadhouse for such a long time he wasn't exactly the first person you'd expect to rock up out of the blue.

The journal was thrust into his immediate line of sight and Harry huffed out an irritated breath, pushing his glasses up his nose.

There were numerous newspaper clippings: mysterious deaths, disappearances, even vandalism – strange, ritualistic graffiti and destruction. It didn't sound like anything good was happening in Valentine anyway. Dismissing the deaths and disappearances for the time being – he still hadn't gotten the hang of identifying possible causes of death from physical wounds – he picked up one of the grainy newspaper images of the new graffiti. Most of it he ignored, classifying it as some sort of gang paraphernalia – he didn't understand people any more.

Some of it did give off a supernatural vibe to Harry, but he couldn't immediately recognise anything; it was as though they were mangled or altered somehow. Depending on what was there who knew what sort of untoward effect altering the symbols might have.

"I'm not sure..." Harry muttered, frowning. Reaching under the table he pulled his own notebook out of his bag and set it down next to John's, flipping it open to the next blank page. With painstaking precision – he'd gotten a lot better at copying complex symbols over the years – he reproduced all of the symbols in the pictures before placing them back in John's journal and pushing it back across the table to him.

"I've already got a fairly good idea of what's doing everything, but some of that stuff might make getting rid of it more complicated than normal." John confessed, tucking his journal away again.

Harry nodded absently, already running through his mental book list to try and think what books might be able to help him study the symbols.

"I agree. Symbology can be a dangerous thing when used wrong – or rather, when used  _right_."

John lifted an eyebrow at Harry's absent response, not expecting him to say anything.

"I see. Well, if you find anything important let me know." Ripping Harry's journal and pen from his hands John scribbled down a number on the next page, ignoring the indignant squawk Harry let out. "Would you tell Ellen I dropped by?"

Harry nodded, clutching his journal tightly once John finished writing.

Without another word, John Winchester left the Roadhouse.

Harry stared after him, before delving straight into his books. He wasn't going to disappoint the man.


	14. That Damned Hero Complex

**Chapter 14 – That Damned Hero Complex:**

For some reason or another, Ellen was more surprised by the fact that John Winchester had actually spoken to Harry than the mere fact that he stopped by. According to her it was "about time" he passed through Nebraska again. Harry didn't stick around for any reminiscing; as soon as he'd seen Ellen and passed on the message he'd headed straight for his room, intent on sequestering himself away from the world in there until he figured out what it was John had showed him, what it meant, and how it could be dealt with. He didn't always get that hyped up when doing research for someone else, often-times he'd remain out in the open, tucked away in his booth, still open to other side-projects as he worked on and off again.

Ellen knew better than to try and talk him out of it; Jo was still learning. She didn't understand the obsession Harry had developed with knowledge – he barely understood it himself, except now that he was free from manipulations he found he had a need to  _know_  everything, so he wouldn't be caught unawares again. On Ellen's orders Jo would bring food to him in his room twice a day – if he wanted lunch he was supposed to get it himself, a sort of incentive to leave his room for half an hour or so, but he more often simply went without – and every now and again the fifteen year old would huff and sigh and try and figure him out from the doorway, always resulting in a half-hearted training request, which would either be shot down or ignored entirely.

Harry wasn't trying to be harsh or anything; his research and his "stuffy old books", as Jo had once called them, were just more important to him than some time spent getting his ass kicked by a teenage girl.

It took him an entire week in seclusion, sleeping for short hours and at odd times, only enough to keep himself from collapsing, to figure out what was what and come up with a theory and a conclusion for everything in Valentine.

The graffiti was actually fairly straightforward, if you ignored the modifications. They were your regular, everyday spirit summoning sigils. Some for summoning, some for retaining, some for exaggerating emotional features of the spirit – what better way to make a violent poltergeist than by raising someone with anger management issues?

They were the sorts of things that anyone could get their hands on if they looked in the right places.

It took him the better part of five days to identify the modifications made to the sigils though. They turned out to be bastardised demonic sigils; the workings of a spiteful, or potentially very bored, witch. Either the witch in question was incredibly powerful, or they had found themselves a demon master with way too much time on their hands who was actually willing to teach them how to incorporate their demon-bred magic into regular sigils.

So John Winchester was dealing with a witch, or a coven of witches, or a witch and her demon.

Despite it being rather hypocritical of him Harry had a fierce aversion to the thought of someone selling themselves to a demon like that. Magic wasn't that important to life, it was nowhere near an essential thing, and their magic couldn't even do half the things his could – used to be able to – not to mention they needed preparation and specific ingredients. It wasn't worth it. How they had been allowed to spread was something Harry, if he wasn't trying to stay on the down-low, would definitely have brought up with the American Ministry of Magic.

Either way, one week after secluding himself from the world, Harry had called up John and explained about his theories and how he suggested John go about undoing all of the summonings etcetera. John was, apparently, a man of few words, and all Harry really got were some positive sounding grunts – at least he hoped they were positive – and a grumbled thanks before the man hung up on him.

He hadn't been expecting anything better; most hunters didn't seem to like expressing emotions.

Secretly – he'd never say it out loud for fear of a beat-down – that was why he was scared for Jo. Though she'd never admit to it herself, she was an emotional girl. He didn't think she could handle the real world. Hell,  _he_ could barely handle the real world, and his life had been shit from the beginning.

With his work done Harry forced himself out into the open once more, and silently hoped that John, like most of his begrudging clients, would heed his request to let him know when it was all over and done with. It was a not-so-irrational need to know that he hadn't sent anyone to their deaths.

* * *

Two weeks later and it was the middle of December.

Harry had taken to sitting his phone on the table beside him, the volume turned way up.

He'd taken on one case in the two weeks. One case that hadn't taken him more than a day to figure out. It had been for some 30-something year-old newbie hunter, who had more than happily rang him on it's completion the day after, singing his praises in a hunter-esque way, which was something along the lines of saying that he'd call if he ever needed more help.

One grateful hunter was no nerve-soother for the lack of contact from another.

"What the hell are you playing at John Winchester?"

Generally Harry was a pretty patient guy – which was surprising, considering all the patience he had been forced to expend during the first seventeen years of his life – but there were some things he just couldn't deal with.

Ignoring any and all protests from various people at the Roadhouse Harry packed a bag and left, seventeen days after his last point of contact with Winchester.

* * *

Harry still hadn't gotten the hang of reading maps, so it took him longer than it should have to get to Valentine. Every single second spent on the road only served to heighten the tension he felt running through his body. It was a morbid adrenalin.

He had no idea what he was getting into; he could be making a big deal out of nothing, because Ellen had made a point to tell him about how unreliable John was with contacting people. The case could be over and done with. There was also the possibility that something truly disastrous had happened, something beyond either of their expectations of the case. Sure, Harry would  _like_  for it to be the first option, but how realistic was that hope?

Upon arrival Harry didn't bother trying to find a motel; he wanted to get to the bottom of the whole thing as quickly as possible and then get the hell out of town. This was one of the few situations when he seriously missed his own magic – it would make everything a million times simpler if he could just use a point me charm to locate John.

Pulling over in a quiet street Harry abandoned his car and decided to check the streets on foot. He had his somewhat trusty knife strapped to his ankle inside his boot, and the gun he was still rather iffy about using was tucked away in a borrowed holster under his jacket. He even had his wand strapped to his leg, despite the fact he couldn't use it. It was actually the first time he had looked at it since the ordeal with Crowley, but it was a comforting weight nonetheless.

Forcing his mind back, Harry tried to remember where the crime-scenes had been. Though he was no longer capable of using magic, he'd found, through his very limited exposure to actual wizards and witches, that he could still sense their presence – not to the extent that he used to be able to; he could no longer identify individual magical signatures, or even detect the spiritual presence of muggles, but he could still tell if a person had his sort of magic. On the whole in his day to day life it was hardly a useful skill to have retained, but he never knew when it might come in handy.

Surprisingly enough, though Harry certainly wasn't expecting it, there  _was_  some magical residue scattered across the town. He wasn't sure if it was relevant to the situation at hand, because why on earth would a proper wizard bother with demonic magic and sigils? But it wouldn't hurt to keep tabs on any magical people he stumbled across so, with nothing else to go on for his search without asking any locals, which would really have to wait until tomorrow morning because it was far too late for door-knocking, Harry followed the path to the strongest concentration which, theoretically, would be their house.

Harry supposes it's his ridiculous dumb luck that no-one is home when he gets there, and there are no locking or monitoring charms on the front door. It isn't even locked well – Harry's lock-picking skills are abysmal, but he manages to jimmy it open without much effort – which is odd, because Harry knows from experience that magical people tend to like their privacy.

Shrugging off the ominous feeling that something is seriously off, Harry slips inside the house anyway. It's fairly normal – muggle normal too, not wizard – two-story, a spread of mess that gives off a 'lived in' feel rather than one of laziness. There's a pile of mail on the bench in the kitchen – oddly convenient, but Harry doesn't ponder it for long. There are at least two people living in the house – maybe more, it's certainly large enough.

Checking his watch and glancing out the window Harry then proceeded up the stairs, checking briefly in all of the rooms. Mostly there was nothing out of the ordinary; except for the one room that reeked of magic, and another that had strange symbols woven into a dream-catcher that hung in the window. They were too delicate and small for Harry to identify, but it was enough to suspect that perhaps the witch they were dealing with lived with the mysterious magic user.

Of course, it was a Harry was examining that particular room that someone decided to arrive home. That was just how his brand of luck worked; he really should have seen it coming.

"Fuck."

There was no time for him to attempt an escape unless he wanted to jump out the second story window, which really wasn't something he wanted to try any time soon; his body wasn't made for that sort of abuse. There was the closet he had been looking through, but it was packed to the brim with clothes and there was no chance he would be able to squeeze himself into it without being frightfully conspicuous. Crossing his fingers and praying for the best Harry positioned himself behind the door and hoped to hell that whoever was home wouldn't be coming into this bedroom.

Heavy footsteps trekked up the stairs and down the hallway, and Harry's heart was beating loudly against his ribcage, but the foreign feet kept moving, past Harry's hiding spot and further into the house, before a door slammed somewhere deeper in, and Harry could breath again.

They hadn't noticed that the lock was broken, so Harry assumed it was the wizard – he was too strung-out to check, fearing it might garner the other's attention.

This was not good. This was very,  _very_  not good.

Emerald eyes darted around the room from his not-very-inventive hiding place, scanning for any obvious details, anything he might have missed before, gearing up to get the hell out of that house. There was a draw that was partially open in the desk. Peeking around the edge of the door Harry checked the hallway, deeming it safe before racing over to the desk and yanking it open. Despite it being a bad idea he grabbed everything inside the draw. With it all gathered rather haphazardly in his arms Harry took a deep breath, steeled himself, and ran as silently as he could down the stairs and out the door.

Harry ran for three blocks without stopping; he'd never been more grateful for Jo's marathon morning training sessions. His heart was pounding so heavily he feared it would burst out of his chest – it was a rational fear, who knows what he could have unknowingly been cursed with. Collapsing on the pavement Harry took a moment to actually look at what he had taken.

A folded, torn, crinkled map, and a journal.

Sighing harshly he flipped the journal open the most recent entry: yesterdays. The writing was a little hard to decipher – all girly and loopy and linked, like calligraphy – but he eventually manages to pick apart enough to get a fairly decent understanding of what's written there in blue ink.

" _... the hunter is a fierce one. I only managed to knock him out for a short while. Thankfully Master was the one who actually locked him up, I would never have been able to. The charms on the room help too. He won't be making it out alive..._ "

Startled, Harry back-tracked, flipping back though the pages, but the next most recent entry was from a week ago. Who knows what that meant. John – it had to be John, he hadn't mentioned any other hunters being up in Valentine – could have been locked up for that entire week, or the crazy chick might only have managed to capture him the day before. Either way it was bad news.

The map had a bunch of red circles on it – wow, obvious much? Most of them corresponded with either crime scenes or areas John had pointed out for their sigils. Then there were two others. The house – what, was she going to forget where she lived? – and some storage shed across town.

Had Harry ever mentioned how much he loved stupid people? Sometimes they just made his life so much easier.

Now Harry hadn't slept in at least 30 hours, and he was completely exhausted, but if there was one trait he couldn't seem to shake off it was his 'saving-people thing', as Hermione had so affectionately dubbed it. John Winchester was a part of his life now, even if they had only been together for all of ten minutes – Harry still dedicated a week of his life to the man, so that had to count for something – and Harry didn't like letting people die when he thought he could do something to prevent it.

And he didn't want to think about the guilt that would crush him when, eventually, he remembered that John was a father and had kids who were then fatherless, all because he didn't act on his gut feeling and offer a helping hand, even if it was likely to be rejected.

* * *

It was some ridiculous hour of the very early morning when Harry reached the storage shed marked on the map. He was running off of pure adrenalin at that point, and fully expected to pass out the moment the danger had passed – possibly sooner if he wasn't careful.

The exterior had this incredibly run-down look to it, so much so that most people wouldn't dare to venture inside for fear of structural damage and imminent collapse. A perfect hiding spot.

Harry was almost 100% sure that he had passed by the witch on the way there, so theoretically John should be the only person inside the building – unless she really did have her demon on watch duty, which was a whole other issue. It wouldn't be wise for Harry to be around a hunter and a demon at the same time.

Armed with a false confidence he didn't really feel at all Harry went through the front door, feet obnoxiously loud against the concrete.

Surprisingly – or not so, Harry could never be sure any more – the top level was actually being used for storage. Not that he believed that the witch actually owned any of it, most of it seemed as though it had been salvaged from a scrap heap. An effective guise for anyone who did brave the exterior to check out the inside.

It took a good ten minutes of searching to find the trapdoor that led underground to a rather pathetic holding cell. Yes, there were markings and sigils carved everywhere you looked, just like the journal had said, but they didn't mean anything. The demon was just having a laugh at the witch's expense. John was also unconscious, which Harry supposed was actually a good thing, because the man wouldn't have been impressed with all the noise Harry had been making upstairs. Hunting just wasn't his thing, he hadn't really gotten the whole subtlety thing down yet.

"Well well well, someone decided to come after the hunter after all." A feminine voice echoed throughout the room, and Harry suddenly found himself face to face with a red-eyed woman. Crossroads demon. Of course. Bored of regular deals, switching her position to someone else for a time, having a laugh at the stupidity of the human race.

"Yeah." Harry replied somewhat breathlessly, stunned, though he shouldn't have been. She eyed him carefully, scrutinising.

"Oh, this is interesting." She grinned, an intrigued, malicious grin. Of course she bloody well knew who Harry was; what freaking demon didn't? "I so wish I could just kill you now, the others would be so jealous, but unfortunately the boss wouldn't be too pleased about that. He's got an eye on you. Always."

Always? Crowley had been watching him? Harry would have thought Crowley would have been too caught up in whatever he had managed to make of Harry's stolen magic to bother with watching over him – and was that in a guardian-angel sort of way or just a 'I wonder what he's up to' way? Or was Harry like a pet-project sort of thing now?

"So, um..." Harry scratched the back of his head awkwardly, taking a step or two away from her overbearing presence.

"You're here for the hunter, correct?" She asked, surprisingly friendly. Harry didn't like it, but then again who was he to complain if the demon decided she wanted to screw over someone that  _wasn't_  him?

"Yes..."

"Take him then. He hasn't done anything worth my attention. Besides, Heather's reaction will be most amusing once she returns to find him gone. Her skills with magic are dreadful, but she does make up for it in entertainment value."

Harry had never been so confused in his life. But, with a free ticket out of there he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Murmuring something that could have been a thanks or could just have been a very odd sound, Harry picked the locks on the cuffs that bound John to the wall – they were seriously bad quality, if the man had been conscious he could have broken himself out, no sweat, Harry was sure of it. It was becoming startlingly obvious to Harry that this Heather chick, the witch, had never tried to abduct anyone before; she had no idea what she was doing. Which was incredibly lucky for Harry.

What was going to go wrong then?

Harry wasn't looking forward to karma fighting back; he wasn't often allowed good luck like this.

With John completely unchained Harry was faced with the realisation that he was going to have to drag him up the stairs and outside. Now that he was here and realised that maybe John wasn't in as much danger as he had thought, he was almost willing to just leave him lying there on the floor until he woke up. But that just wasn't Harry's style, so he grudgingly moved the older man.

He'd thought about taking John all the way back to his car – John's, not Harry's – but he had no idea where it was and it would mean dragging John all the way across town, quite literally. So instead Harry propped him up again a sturdy tree away from the roadside, hidden behind some shrubbery. Sure, the guy'd wake up with a sore neck, but as a hunter he was bound to have had worse.

Staring down at the man Harry sighed, scratching his nose. He was nearly asleep on his feet himself, and he wanted to at least get back to his car before he crashed, because he didn't really want to be too close by when John actually woke up. Still, it seemed a bit wrong to just leave him there.

Tugging the journal out of his pocket Harry scavenged a pen from another pocket and scribbled out a little note on a blank page.

"You have a phone for a reason. Use it. HP."

Ripping it out Harry tucked it in one of John's pockets. Satisfied, he walked away, planning on sleeping for a week once he made it back to the Roadhouse.


	15. Moving On

**Chapter 15 – Moving On:**

_February 2001:_

Hundreds of miles away from the Roadhouse, in a place no human would ever visit, success had finally rained down on a certain demon. Blood was spattered in a macabre fashion across the walls, the floor, and even part of the ceiling, but it did little to dampen the elation of the man – or rather, demon – standing triumphant in the centre of the room, wearing a drenched apron and standing over the latest dead body.

The self-proclaimed King of the Crossroads, Crowley, had spent an ample portion of the last two years and three months running all manner of experiments on the unique substance known as Harry Potter's magical core. He wasn't, of course, naïve enough to think that he could get away with simply touching it and having his way with the power the substance represented: he had sacrificed a demon that had pissed him off in order to try it, regardless. The demon had been fully rejected by it, resulting in a rather gruesome explosion of body parts everywhere. Crowley's lab hadn't been properly clean ever since.

Using disobedient demons as test subjects was standard procedure in Hell, and with so many of them, and so many things to test, he had been, for the most part, happily occupied with his little project.

But it was finally finished. The latest demon had been able to create a ball of light in the palm of their hand without spontaneously combusting, or even bleeding from the ears. That had been the final frontier, so to speak. The demon was only dead now because Crowley wasn't about to chance someone leaking his secrets to the world before he had a chance to unleash them himself.

Wearing a self-satisfied smirk Crowley absorbed the magical energy into his body, and made a note to take good care of his current body, because otherwise he would have to go through more processes removing it again.

With a snap of his fingers the room was spotless. The majority of Harry's magic usage in the last few months before he relinquished it had been cleaning spells, and it showed with how easily Crowley was able to use it.

"Well now, this is going to be all sorts of fun."

* * *

_March 2001:_

There was a new addition to the Roadhouse. It wasn't a hunter; they came and went as they pleased, some only stopping by once in their life – or at least once in the entire time Harry had been staying there. The new guy on the block was actually an MIT drop-out. A real computer whiz, Harry had to admit. As far as he could tell the guy had no real reason to be at the Roadhouse – perhaps it was just a bar he'd stumbled across and he couldn't pick up the motivation to leave? Either way, he was a pretty eccentric character. Harry wasn't surprised he's been kicked out. Ash didn't seem like the sort of person professionals could put up with for long periods of time.

In a way Harry felt as though Ash was encroaching on his territory, since it looked like the guy was going to become a researcher of sorts himself, but on the other hand he was also glad the guy had turned up when he did. Harry had been getting a bit antsy from all the time he'd spent at the Roadhouse, barely ever leaving except that one trip to Valentine that was never spoken of – John had sent him a text sometime while he was passed out in the back of his car telling him to mind his own business and hadn't contacted him again since – and he'd also been feeling a bit guilty about hogging space there, even though he made an effort to pay for things when Ellen wasn't paying attention so she couldn't growl at him for it.

That said, Harry didn't intend to skip out straight away. If Ash turned out to be a lazy good-for-nothing then Harry would dig in his heels and stay put rather than leave the Roadhouse in the hands of someone incompetent while he ran off to do whatever it was he felt like doing – he hadn't really thought that far ahead, hadn't thought seriously about leaving until a few days ago when Ash first burst through the doors. Hell, he didn't even know where he'd  _go_ , or even if he'd keep on doing research for hunters – would they need him if Ash proved himself?

* * *

Ash definitely took some adjusting to; he was a bit like an acquired taste. With a crazy hair-do Harry would wager he never planned to get rid of – 'business at the front, party at the back' – his personality was reflected easily in the way he presented himself; he didn't give a crap about what people thought of him. It was actually sort of cool, and Harry sometimes envied him for that self-assurance that he still seemed to lack, no matter how much time passed.

"Hey man, you want a beer?"

Ash asked him the same question pretty much every day, but Harry had seen what alcohol did to other people – Ash in particular, since he kept passing out everywhere and Harry would take it upon himself to drag his dead weight back to his own room – and he never accepted. He didn't like the thought of any of his senses voluntarily being messed with, especially since he no longer had the advantage of a magical warning system.

"No Ash, I don't want a beer," Harry shot back, smiling, knowing that by now Ash was pretty much just doing it because it was becoming a habit. A weird little ritual between the two of them. They never called each other out on any of their quirks, and they showed a sort of accepting camaraderie with their routines.

But Harry had made up his mind. Ash was fine. He would leave the Roadhouse in his hands. He just had to decide when.

* * *

Waking up one day at the beginning of May Harry decided that today was the day. Standing in the centre of his bedroom he scrutinised the 'organised' mess he had made of his various possessions. It would take a bit, but he'd be able to pack it all up before anyone came looking for him.

Pulling out some clean clothes Harry dressed in a pair of worn blue jeans and a shirt emblazoned with the emblem of some band he'd never heard of. Taking a deep breath he sunk to his knees on the floor and pulled his bag to him, glancing around at his various book stacks. People would probably wonder how he got them all out of his room with no-one noticing, but it would be no stranger than when they got there in the first place. He had a mysterious aura to uphold after all; they didn't always need answers.

It was surprising where some of his books had gotten to. When he'd packed all of the ones in his room – he had a mental list of everything he owned, having hoarded them for so long – he realised he was still missing quite a few, and decided to finish packing the rest of his things first. Any clothes he happened to leave behind could easily be replaced, and would probably go to good use anyway – if they could find a hunter skinny enough for them; maybe Ash would take them.

"Oookay then," Harry muttered to himself, standing up and stretching, wincing as his leg started to cramp – awkward positions for long periods of time always made his cruciatus tremors act up.

If he remembered correctly Jo had sneaked a few of his books away over the months, so they were probably in her room, which would be an awkward confrontation. There was one behind the bar – he couldn't remember why, but he'd never bothered to retrieve it. Ash had used one to prop up the pool table... Why had he let him do that again? Harry couldn't remember that either.

Reasons didn't matter any more.

Harry braved the bar first for his out-in-the-open books. Ellen raised a brow at him when he climbed behind the counter, but when he popped back up with book in hand she gave him a slightly bemused look before shrugging it off. People sometimes did strange things, and she'd learned long ago not to pry. She probably wouldn't want to know.

A quick query told him that Jo was out – thank Merlin – so it was safe to steal his things back from her room without her noticing. They were harder to find than they should have been, buried under countless other things, but he still managed to make it back out in one piece – in other words, before Jo got back.

He got a funny look from a just-woken Ash when he passed the guy's room, but he was probably still a bit hung-over anyway, so 'funny' might just have been him trying to figure out who it was.

Eventually everything was where it should be, and Harry was faced with telling Ellen he was leaving.

Scrambling for time to sort his thoughts, he went out the back way to where his car had taken up residence to put away his things first. It took a surprising amount of self-control not to just get in the car and drive away without a word, but he knew that would be cruel.

"Don't be a wuss," Harry berated himself, squaring his shoulders and heading back inside.

"Oh, there you are Harry. I was wondering where you'd gone." Ellen called him out as soon as he made it back into the bar.

"Yeah..." Taking a deep breath, Harry blurted it all out at once. "EllenI'mleaving!"

She stared at him, mouth moving slightly as she tried to work out what he'd said.

"You alright kid?"

Harry nodded slowly, curling his fingers in the hem of his shirt.

"It's just... Hmm... It's been great, staying here and all, but ah... you've got Ash now, and I... I think I need to get going." Harry still hadn't mastered the art of talking to Ellen without feeling like he was going to be berated for something – not in a bad way, in a motherly way, which was somehow harder for him to deal with.

Ellen's expression softened into understanding.

"I was wondering when you were going to say that. I could see you getting all stir-crazy, even if you couldn't tell yourself." Harry gaped, wide-eyed. Was he that obvious? "BUT. If I don't hear from you once a week I'm going to have search parties out looking for you, you hear me?"

Laughing lightly with relief, Harry nodded emphatically. He understood the need for reassurance, and it would be nice to hear how everything was going.

The only question that remained now was where was he going?

Harry wasn't sure. He'd find out when he got there.


	16. A New Life

**Chapter 16 – A New Life:**

If someone asked Harry why he chose to settle down in Jackson of all places, he wouldn't have much of an answer. It had taken him the better part of two months to decide on a place, and eventually it came down to the fact that, when he drove into Jackson, there had been an appropriate house for sale. That, and he was getting sick of road-trips again. Driving wasn't as fulfilling as flying, and he always felt just the tiniest sense of claustrophobia when shut away in his car for long periods of time – it was surprising he didn't feel it more often considering where he'd lived for ten years of his life, but he wasn't going to complain about  _not_  being claustrophobic.

He didn't know anyone in Jackson, and that was fine with him. His neighbours had rocked up unannounced the day after he moved in, introducing themselves and asking all sorts of questions, the majority of which he brushed off, and the rest of which he gave vague, ambiguous answers to. They were reasonably nice people, from what he had gleaned, but he was used to being around stoic hunters, not emotional grandparents and families.

Since he finally had enough space to himself Harry set up one of the rooms as a library for all of his books – that way they would be on display if anyone came around looking for help, and he wouldn't have to evade questions on where they came from when he suddenly had more than he'd appeared to. That room got special treatment – a devil's trap on the ceiling, iron door-handles, the works. He'd put a devil's trap beneath the doormat as well, but better safe than sorry.

Having a house was all well and good, but Harry still didn't know what to do with himself. Getting a job to fill his time would be preferable, but he'd incur all sorts of unexplainable absences when he got given a case to research – hunting was first priority after all – and he couldn't afford to rouse suspicion. Who knows what sort of theories they'd make up about him? It couldn't be any more damaging than the sorts of things people had spouted about him during second, fourth and fifth year, but they wouldn't know that.

* * *

A week after Harry's house was fully set up he went out to properly explore the town. Sure, he'd driven through it, and looked around enough to find his house, but he hadn't really  _looked_  at anything. He would try and avoid being seen as a shut-in for as long as possible.

It was a nice town – fairly normal – and it was a bonus that it was a decent distance from the wizard and witch over in Valentine.

The only problem Harry ever had with moving these days was that it left him feeling vulnerable. He had to learn the layout of the place and judge the people, shove them into little categories in his mind – those who were naturally abrasive, those likely to be weak to supernatural influence, etcetera etcetera. Anomalies were dangerous. They had to be weeded out as efficiently as possible.

Passing by a Supermarket as he walked the streets Harry absently noted the 'help wanted' sign before moving on. They would pop up all over the place, generally at places Harry would never think of working at, even if he really had to. Though he could cook fairly well – a side-effect of being the equivalent of a house-elf to the Dursleys – he didn't want to have anything to do with food, even if it was as small an involvement as scanning items at a checkout counter. That pretty much cut his job opportunities down by half, but as it stood he wasn't necessarily looking for a job. A hobby would suffice, if it was one that would get him out of the house.

'Jo will kill me if I slack off with my training,' he realised, and, though it was unlikely he would ever have cause to run into Jo anywhere in the vicinity, since Ellen wasn't likely to let her venture that far from the Roadhouse unless something really serious was going down, it still put a little bit of fear into him. That girl was ten times more skilled than he was and probably ever would be, but hell she expected a lot from him. Thankfully he had a lot of empty space in his house for weapons training – not gun training, but he was sure if he really needed to he'd be able to find a firing range somewhere – but it wasn't really appropriate for the rest of his training regime.

He needed to find a gym.

* * *

Did Harry ever mention how much he hated working out in public? There was always this sense of judgement when out in the public eye, but it was worse in places like gyms. Particularly for people like him, with his unexplainable scars and malnourished body – you couldn't tell he'd been malnourished, per say, but he was inexplicably scrawny and shorter than he'd like to be. If he wore long sleeves and covered up while at the gym he almost got more stares than when he went in a singlet and showed off his scars – battle wounds, but they didn't know that.

It was embarrassing.

The only plus side to it all was that he could outlast most of the guys who looked like long-time gym regulars. He was pretty sure they all hated him for it, but it amused him to no end to see them all smug, only to lose face when they became exhausted first. If Jo's morning runs were good for anything, it was endurance.

Endurance was also necessary for outrunning any nasty beasts that might decide they wanted to kill him.

Thankfully nothing like that had happened yet.

* * *

Harry stared down at the phone in his hands, thumb hesitating over the button that would put his call through. He'd talked to Ellen just after he finished setting up his house, but not since. It wasn't that he'd forgotten, he'd just... been putting it off. While it was reassuring to hear her voice – hell, she'd become something of a mother to him, just like Cassidy had been an older sister type of person in his life – that was one of the very reasons he'd wanted to lay off for a little while. He needed time to adjust without the crutch that Ellen had become.

He had forgotten one very important detail in doing so.

In a world of uncertainties Ellen liked routines just as much as Harry did. They were grounding factors in an ever changing situation. And Harry hadn't called her in over three weeks.

She was going to be furious.

Swallowing thickly, Harry cleared his throat, shifted into a more comfortable position on his couch, pulling his legs up to stretch out next to him, and finally pushed the button.

Holding the cell up to his ear he listened to it ring; once, twice, three times... Someone picked up after the fifth ring; Harry guessed it couldn't be too hectic over there then.

"Roadhouse," a familiar voice greeted flatly over the dim sound of chatter. Harry's lips twitched upwards.

"Hey Jo, long time no see."

" _Harry!?_ "

Rolling his eyes at her tone Harry picked at a fraying thread on the arm of the couch.

"Yeah, it's me."

"Where have you  _been?_  Where did you  _go?_ "

Oh, that's right. Jo had been out when he left and he hadn't spoken to her since. That in itself might just have been a bigger mistake than all the missed calls for Ellen.

"Jo, breathe. I'm sorry, I thought your mum would have told you." Frowning slightly Harry searched his memory. "You could have rung you know? You've got my number somewhere over there."

There was a heavy pause; he could almost sense Jo's embarrassment at freaking out on him. She couldn't be doing too badly though, or she might have threatened him with bodily harm. Angry love. If he was there in person she would have forced him into some new and unusual training session as punishment for making her worry.

Distantly Harry heard Jo calling out, in a muffled, hand-over-the-mouthpiece way. He waited patiently, fingers drumming nervously. It was hard to distinguish sound over the phone, what with static crackles, the occasional bad-connection echo, and the distinctly mechanical hiss that warped speech just that tiny little bit as it travelled. He wasn't sure if it was still Jo on the other end, so he chose to remain silent until someone else made the first move.

The silence was just starting to get unnerving when someone remembered he was there.

"Harry Evan Peverell you nearly gave me a heart-attack when you stopped calling!" Harry flinched. Ellen was definitely what you would call a mother dragon. Fierce and protective. And she was way more than a little bit pissed off.

"When you promise me something I expect you to honour that promise, not go gallivanting off wherever without a thought, you hear me?"

Harry bit back his automatic response of 'You know damn well where I've been' because this wasn't like back in England. You could be in one place one day and halfway across the country the next time you speak to anyone. That was the nature of the job. Grievous bodily harm could occur at any time, and he'd seen plenty of it around, both in hunters and from other accidents in civilians – he'd taken to referring to anyone who wasn't in the know as a civilian, because in their line of work, that's exactly what they were.

"I'm sorry Ellen. I probably should have told you that I wasn't planning on checking in for a few weeks."

"Probably? There's no probably about it. You definitely should have told me. And whatever the hell for?"

It was sort of embarrassing, now that he thought about it, and perhaps not as big a deal as he had made it out to be. There was a part of him that really didn't want to tell Ellen. After all, he'd never made any mention of that sort of thing while he'd been at the Roadhouse, and he liked to think he'd become more difficult to read over the years, so she ought to have no idea how important she had become in his life.

Then again, Ellen seemed to know everything without even asking.

"I… Look, Ellen, I didn't mean to worry you, I swear. It's just… I needed to make sure I could really do this, without your help."

"Without my help?"

Harry sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand. In his mind it was a difficult concept to explain, because although he had gotten used to relying on and caring for other people, he hadn't yet adjusted to people caring about him – and that had to say something about how damaged he was, at the core, since he'd had people caring about him since he was eleven, and now he was almost twenty-one.

"I owe you so much for letting me free-load at the Roadhouse all these years, you know that right?" Harry cut off her noise of protest before she could get started. "It really helped me out when I was a bit lost in the world. But the thing is, I'm a bit lost again, and I was hoping I'd be able to adjust to the changes without having you to lean on. You'd think I'd be used to it by now, I've been alone for a while now, but it's more difficult now, knowing that you're only a phone call away. So I shut my phone off for a few weeks. Yeah, I saw the missed calls. I am sorry though."

That wasn't exactly what he'd been aiming to say, not to mention that was more than he'd ever talked about his life before Nebraska in the whole time they'd known each other. He wasn't good at that sort of thing. Which is exactly why research was actually well suited to him – he didn't have to be emotional about anything, just read and write, process and deliver.

"I suppose you probably think I'm being clingy and overbearing, don't you." Ellen muttered, sounding, if Harry's ears weren't playing tricks on him, just a little bit teary. He shook his head vehemently in denial, despite the fact she couldn't see him.

"Of course not! I'm the one who started the whole phone thing anyway with that bloody Winchester fellow. I do appreciate that you care enough to worry on my behalf when I don't check in."

Ellen laughed, and Harry relaxed slightly, loosening his tight grip on his cell.

"Don't you dare do that again young man." She warned.

"I promise Ellen. Never again. You will be top priority from now on."

The call moved to lighter subjects after that, and when Harry finally got off the phone nearly an hour later he felt a whole lot better about the whole situation.

If something called to him, he'd get a job. He could deal with whatever skepticism was thrown his way. His life revolved around the supernatural now, and no-one could say anything to stop that.


	17. The Eldest Son

**Chapter 17 – The Eldest Son:**

_August 2003, Jackson:_

It wasn't the first time Harry had become entranced by his reflection, and it wouldn't be the last either. There was no sense of vanity to it – he didn't stare because he thought he looked good, or he wanted to make sure his hair was lying just right. The pads of his fingertips traced once again over the long-ago memorised outline pressed into his neck. One would have thought he would have gotten used to it by now, and in a way he had, but sometimes it still managed to surprise him. On a day to day basis he barely gave it a second glance, and he could barely tell it was there, but on others it stood out like black on white and he couldn't shift his gaze from it.

Though Harry wasn't the sort of person who would normally entertain thoughts of inking his skin, it had occurred to him on more than one occasion that it might be… amusing, for lack of a better word, to get a tattoo – say, an anti-possession charm or some other such anti-hellistic symbol – drawn permanently on his skin directly on top of it. Crowley would blow a gasket if he ever saw it.

But Harry wasn't  _that_  suicidal, and he wasn't decisive enough to want to risk a tattoo that he might change his mind about a few weeks down the track.

Nevertheless, it might have been worth it just to see the look on the demon's face if he ever appeared before Harry again.

* * *

Shortly after Harry finally managed to pull himself away from the mirror in the bathroom – it was one of those days, and the image had burned itself onto his retinas – he found himself dozing on the couch in his living room when his phone went off.

Not wanting to move, he simply hung his arm down off the side of the couch and plucked it from the floor where he'd left it for just that reason. Raising it to his line of vision he noted that the blinding screen read caller unknown.

That wasn't surprising. Every now and again a new hunter would pop up with his number, having received it from another hunter, the Roadhouse, or even another researcher if they didn't have the time and resources they knew Harry had. And of course, with most hunters being the paranoid creatures that they are, it wasn't surprising for them to either have multiple cell phones, or to change their number regularly. It wasn't worth keeping track of them all that way, so he just waited for them to contact him and see what happened.

Still, there was always the tiniest bit of trepidation when he answered unknown calls.

He would recognise an international area code immediately, but what if someone inside the States found him? Deep inside, he didn't truly believe that there would be any sort of search effort from England still trying to find him after all this time – some of him didn't believe there would have been one at all – but it was an irrational fear, and so he'd long since given up trying to rationalise it.

Shaking it off Harry pushed the answer button before the caller gave up and held it up to his ear.

"Hello?"

It was rude, but manners weren't always up there with hunters, and it was sometimes safer to see who they thought they were ringing before confirming or denying.

A pregnant pause ensued.

"Is this Harry?"

It was an unfamiliar voice. Harry had only half been expecting that. Still, there was just something about it, like he'd heard something similar once before, but he couldn't place it.

"Yes it is, what can I do for you?"

Not for the first time Harry cursed himself for using the same phone for his research and for his handy-man jobs – the 'hobby' he'd taken up being fixing things for fellow residents of Jackson; for once all the shit he'd gone through in his younger years was actually proving to be useful.

"The thing is, I'm in over my head a bit. I remembered seeing your name in my dad's journal, and he left it behind, so I looked it up. I can't ask dad 'cause he expects me to deal with it on my own but  _I don't know what's happening!_ "

Emerald eyes blinked in surprise. He sighed heavily and reached up with his free hand to rub at his temples. Sure, he might have been looking for a distraction, but he wasn't sure if he could deal with hysterics – not that whoever was on the other end of the line would ever agree that they were hysterical.

"You're going to have to give me details mate. I'm not a miracle worker, no matter how bloody convenient that would be."

The pause this time was more awkward than suspicious.

"Sorry, sorry." Harry could hear the other man taking a deep breath. "There's just... Drownings. Everywhere. Everyone is drowning and I can't figure out how to fucking stop it!"

Wrinkling his nose in resignation Harry swung himself up into a sitting position, contemplating what creatures from his memory dealt with water. Obviously it wasn't a haunting, because the guy sounded far too stressed for that.

"Slower. What do you mean by everyone? Break it down for me. It might help."

"There's been... Ten drownings in the past two weeks, completely at random. All men – no connection other than living in the same town."

"Drowning? That's an odd manner of death. I can see why you'd be stumped." Harry rubbed his thumb across his bottom lip, thinking, already mentally sorting between possibilities. "You're absolutely certain that it isn't some sort of haunting?"

"No. But that's the problem! There haven't been any suspicious drownings in the last what, 50 years at least, and other than the sudden drowning problem no-one has died under any potentially questionable circumstances recently either. If it is a haunting then I have absolutely no idea what might have triggered it or who the culprit would be."

Harry mulled this all over in his head, rolling it around and trying to force fragments together to try and create some sort of picture. It sounded familiar to him – not in the way that he'd faced it before, but like he ought to know what was happening.

"What's your name?" Harry eventually asked, after dragging a few more details from the guy, as he walked towards his library. "I'll call you back on this number once I find something."

A relieved sigh was breathed down the connection and Harry rolled his eyes, waiting.

"Dean." He paused then, as though contemplating the merits of sharing the rest, but then seemed to shake it off. "Dean Winchester."

Oh. Well, that made sense, Harry supposed. He guessed it also meant that John wasn't pissed off enough at him to close off a decent information source as a just-in-case – John himself wouldn't be calling Harry for anything less than life-or-death.

Harry hummed an acknowledgement before hanging up; he couldn't waste time with niceties.

Dropping his cell on the table just inside the door Harry rolled up his sleeves and stared thoughtfully at the book-lined shelves, wondering where on earth he was going to start.

* * *

Working without sleep sometimes made Harry hyper-aware, and sometimes made him paranoid. It also, on occasion, made him completely useless.

Thankfully, this was one of those hyper-aware cases, and after staying up all night Harry finally stumbled across – literally, the book had somehow fallen onto the floor, either from his research stack or from the shelves – the right sort of book, and as soon as he opened it pieces started falling into place.

European folklore. Drowning drowning drowning. Peaceful townspeople. A woman gone missing.

It had been staring him in the face the entire time.

When he'd been in that transition period between obsessive research and waiting for Crowley to come through on his end of their bargain back in England, Hermione had, for a while, tried to form some sort of understanding of why he was doing it all. He didn't tell her anything important – even though she was muggle-born she'd still likely scoff at the thought that Harry believed in demons – but she tried her best to worm her way into his thought process.

All she really gathered was that he'd taken an abrupt and obsessive interest in folklore and myths. Nevertheless, in a truly Hermione fashion, she had offered up a plethora of books of her own finding. Some he already had – which was actually surprising, considering she didn't really believe in what he was doing, and mostly gave him the most fantasy-sounding folklore she could find.

But there had been this one story, folklore from the Faroe Islands about seal women who, when scorned, drowned all the men in the village. It fit the situation Dean had described down to a T, except it was in the wrong part of the world. Though, as a rule of thumb, it wasn't wise to assume that something would remain solely in its country of origin.

He'd actually forgotten he even owned that book. Hefting it from hand to hand Harry sat down on the floor – ignoring the chair he usually inhabited – and slowly lay down, holding the book above his head and flicking through the pages almost absently. Surprisingly it had actually been one of his favourite leisure myths to read when he'd been head-deep in stuffy symbols and rules for too long. The words were forever imprinted in his mind.

Eventually Harry fell asleep on the cold, unforgiving hardwood floor.

* * *

When the sun woke him barely an hour later Harry had a noticeable headache, his eyes were fuzzy – his glasses had fallen off while he slept – and he had a paper-cut on his cheek from the book. But all of that was pretty commonplace, so he shrugged it all off and forced himself to his feet, stretching and working the kinks out of his spine.

He was beating himself up just a little bit about not recognising the signs earlier – like, when Dean had rung him and before he hung up – but there was nothing he could do about it. There wasn't any way for him to turn back time – seriously, he had no access to Time Turners, plus he didn't think it wise to go back in time and snatch the phone off of himself before he could hang up. Plus, he'd remember it happening if he had done that, which meant he didn't, which meant he shouldn't... Harry shook his head, his headache increasing. Time travel had always confused him.

Padding in sock-clad feet Harry wandered into the kitchen, poured himself a glass of water, sculled it, and poured another. He banged through the cupboards until he found the bottle of pain pills he'd picked up a while back, and downed one for his headache. Briefly he contemplated having a shower first, but he felt it more prudent to call Dean and explain his findings.

Stifling a yawn – he should really avoid sleeping on the floor if at all possible – he picked up his phone and scrolled through his recent calls, hitting dial when he found the right one.

"What?"

Oh, grouchy morning Dean. Harry had to wonder if the guy went to sleep any earlier than Harry had – his voice had a sleepy gruffness to it that indicated sleep, so he had woken the hunter up, yet most hunters could function as much as necessary on very little sleep.

"Dean, it's Harry. I think I know what you're looking at."

There was a pause, then a curse and a shuffling sound.

"Seriously?" Dean coughed, and when he spoke again he sounded much more awake. "Explain."

"The situation has all the makings of an angry selkie-"

"A what?"

"A selkie. A seal person. Anyway, as the lore goes, men occasionally steal the skins of selkies to prevent them from going back into the sea. The women are then usually forced to marry the man, who hides the skin away. In the story she escapes, and the man goes out hunting and kills her selkie family. She then seeks revenge by drowning men from the village."

"And you think that's what's happening?"

"Well you said that a woman had gone missing. With that fact everything ads up."

"Well that's freaking wonderful. But how do I stop it?"

Harry rolled his eyes, shoving his glasses up and rubbing his eyes with the back of his thumb.

"Well, you can either wait it out until she feels her vengeance has been accomplished," Harry could hear Dean begin to protest as he took a breath, and continued on before he could articulate those protests, "Or you could track her down and kill her. There's no proof anywhere, but theoretically that would stop it."

" _Theoretically?_ "

"Hey, that's the best I've got right now. Sorry."

It did suck sometimes, when he wasn't sure whether or not his information would help. This was one of those times.

"Fine."

"Hey, tell me how it works out, yeah?" Harry implored, offering up his standard 'please don't leave me hanging' thing. Dean was silent for what seemed like a long time, and Harry was almost certain he was going to shoot him down. Then the other man sighed, and grunted out a grudging affirmative – perhaps John had told Dean about him after all.

* * *

A week later Harry received a text. All it said was "I suppose you were right."

Harry smiled, and then went back to fixing Brian Tindel's fridge. One more job successfully accomplished.


	18. Mysterious Phone Calls

**Chapter 18 – Mysterious Phone Calls:**

_October 28 2005, Jackson:_

Life ebbed and flowed for Harry. There were high points and low points, goods and bads, and sometimes nothing at all. The nothing moments were almost worse than the low points, sometimes. Generally, the low points were either when he received an injury of some degree that actually interfered with his capabilities – like that time he was helping someone across town move out and they dropped the washing machine on his foot; he'd been laid up in plaster for months – or when a hunt he was involved in went south. Every single failure – there weren't a lot of them, but anything was a bad number – weighed heavily on him, like he should have been able to do more, say more, something, anything that would have aided in a better outcome.

His moments of nothingness allowed him to mull over his own failings and short-comings. Harry would never go as far to say as he suffered from any form of depression, because that was ridiculous, saviours couldn't be _depressed_ , but he was never really happy either.

So maybe he was a little bit frustrated with his lot in life. Yes, he'd gotten here all on his own – through his own brains, his own choices and his own decisions, be they good or bad – but he never felt like he was doing _enough._

There was a whole god-forsaken world out there that barely anyone knew of – alright, two of them, but he couldn't care less about the wizards anymore – and he couldn't do a single thing about it. If he started ranting about ghosts and demons and werewolves he'd get locked up, sent to a psychiatric hospital. No-one would actually take heed of what he was saying.

It annoyed him to no end to realise that there was literally nothing he could do. 'Ignorance is bliss' is only applicable until those ignorant people start getting tangled up with those things they were blessedly ignorant of.

Sometimes Harry wondered when he had become such a pessimist.

It was probably around the time Crowley had taken away his magic.

That was, after all, the single largest turning point in his entire life, even more so than realising he had magic in the first place, even more than being forced to watch as his classmate died before him while his body was used to resurrect the very foe he had sacrificed his magic to defeat.

He didn't like dwelling on the past. That didn't mean he didn't do it.

* * *

Technically Harry was still meant to be doing rehab for his foot. He called bullshit on that. He'd been out of that cast for nearly a year now, and he was pretty sure the physiotherapist was just scamming him for money now, since it had become apparent to the residents of Jackson that he had some miraculous supply of it.

Besides, he'd had worse injuries before. True, they had been healed by more immediate means, but he was pretty sure he knew the limits of his own body better than some random doctor. He'd stopped going two weeks ago, but he still got calls trying to reschedule.

What he had learnt from the whole incident was not to help people move.

* * *

John Winchester hated asking for help. That was something Harry had learned immediately, and he respected it. He hadn't contacted Harry since that first time, and he didn't mind. He was a loner. It was hardly surprising.

What was surprising was when, shortly after Harry arrived back from an urgent trip to the supermarket, his phone rang with a familiar number.

It was John.

Of course, Harry didn't realise that immediately. Harry had long since stopped bothering to add people to his contacts on his phone, and it wasn't the same phone as before anyway, but there was this vaguely ominous feeling – something he normally attributed to his bouts of almost-depression, really – that had been hanging around all day, despite the fact that he felt pretty good for once. Apparently John calling him was an ominous sign.

And it was.

Harry picked up after nearly ten rings – he'd had to remember where he put his phone, then find it. His regular "hello" was cut off before he even began. John was frantic – manic even.

"Harry. I need to pick your brain."

Though John Winchester often preferred using last names, he refused to say Harry's – something about it being too posh or too British or just too strange.

"What about?" Harry refrained from commenting about their previous lack of contact. He also refrained from making some sarcastic remark about John's request.

"What do you know about demons with yellow eyes?"

That… wasn't what he'd been expecting. Plus, yellow eyes? Harry had never seen a demon with yellow eyes; he'd only ever encountered blacks and reds. There wasn't exactly anyone he could ask either, because there was no way in hell he was calling on Crowley again.

"What's this about all of a sudden?"

There was a pause.

"It's personal."

Harry sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Look, I'm sorry if it's personal, but I need context. I've never even  _heard_  of, let alone  _seen,_  a yellow-eyed demon."

John appeared to be debating the merits of hanging up and pretending the call had never happened.

"So you can't help me then."

"Bloody hell John, tell me what's going on in that head of yours!" Being emotional wasn't the best way to deal with someone like John, but Harry couldn't help it. He cared about people – people he knew anyway, strangers not so much. And he really shouldn't be trying to get John to divulge secrets close to his heart, since Harry would react badly if someone tried that on him, but again, he couldn't help it. He knew this man now, and he also knew the man's son. He wasn't about to let him run off and get himself killed without even trying to persuade him otherwise.

"At least tell me what the colours mean."

And Harry supposed that was a no. He considered not helping him, but caved almost immediately.

"As far as I can tell, black are just normal demons. Red eyes are generally crossroads demons." But Harry couldn't for the life of him remember if he had ever seen Crowley's demon eyes. What colour was the 'king of the crossroads'?

"So no special powers? Hidden agendas?"

"Well no, unless you count making deals. Just generic demon stuff. Nothing extra." The 'that I know of' remained unsaid, but was heavily implied.

"I see."

This wasn't going down well. John didn't seem discouraged in the slightest. Harry ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it and causing it to stick all over the place.

"John..."

"No. Harry, I need you to do one thing for me. Just one."

Damn, sometimes Harry wished he was better at saying no.

"Fine. Tell me what you need."

"If anyone calls, looking for me, just don't... Don't tell them anything. Don't tell them I called, don't tell them what we talked about."

Harry didn't need a vocal admittance to realise that John was talking mostly about Dean. It sounded awful, but Harry couldn't think of anyone else who would desperately call  _him_  looking for John.

"Yes, alright, fine. Just, don't expect me to be happy if anything happens. I'm not hauling your ass out of the fire this time."

John hung up and Harry hung his head, dropping his hands to hang between his legs as he breathed out slowly. This was not good. Not good at all.

* * *

_November:_

Harry had been restless ever since John's phone call. He'd started going through all of his demon-related books all over again, trying to find reference to a yellow-eyed demon – not that books were much help, since they didn't normally mention the whole eye thing. So far he hadn't found anything; he was still completely in the dark about what John was out doing and what exactly he was keeping a secret.

To be honest, he'd even phoned Ash and asked him, in a round about way, if  _he_  knew anything at all about demons – he didn't. His speciality was more about  _using_  computers for various research ventures, not having specific hard-wired knowledge himself. It was a failed venture from the start, but he hadn't been expecting too much.

But the stress was starting to get to him, and he didn't even know what was going on.

And then the inevitable happened.

Dean called.

For a moment Harry just stared at the phone as it rang, wondering if it would be easier to just not pick up the phone. But he wasn't like that, couldn't bring himself to be like that. Saving people at the cost of his own sanity. It was practically Harry Potter 101.

"De-"

"Haveyouheardfrommydadrecently?He'smissing!" Dean cut Harry off before he could get a full word out, speaking a mile a minute. Though, if he put his mind to it, Harry could probably pick out the separate words, it was easier to just ask again.

"Dean, slow down, I can't understand a word you're saying."

"Sorry, I just..." If Harry didn't know better he would have sworn the guy was on the verge of a breakdown. But then again, he also thought that, if he focussed hard enough, he could hear someone else in the background. Dean wouldn't have a breakdown in front of another person, if he had one at all. "My dad, John, he went on a hunt the other week without telling me and he hasn't come back yet. He won't answer my calls and I have no idea where he might have gone."

"Oh merlin... Dean..." Harry bit his lip, mulling his next words over in his mind. "Are you sure he's not just busy?" And now he felt like a jerk. Why did he have to uphold his promises? His life would be so much easier if he were immoral.

"No, he would have told me."

"Listen, Dean, you're what, 25 now?"

"26," he mumbled.

"Okay, 26. Did you ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe, John figured you'd be fine on your own now? That you didn't need to know where he was twenty-four/seven? This could always just be him forcing independence on you." Harry crossed his fingers and hoped to hell Dean bought it.

There was a long silence, broken only by Dean's harsh breathing. Then a different voice spoke up.

"Hello? Harry, right? Listen, this is Sam Winchester. Please, if you know anything, anything at all, could you just, you know, tell us? I'm not sure what the likelihood is, but there  _is_  a chance that he could be in danger, and I... I don't want him to wind up dead when the last time we spoke to each other was in anger."

Harry clenched his eyes shut and held his breath, his fingers digging into his knee. Did that guy know how much he was guilt-tripping Harry? Was that the point? Did he somehow know that John had been in contact with him? But no matter how much he might want to, he didn't really have anything constructive to say anyway.

Fuck.

His life could never be simple, could it?

"I'm sorry Sam, I really am. I can't help you."

And before anyone had a chance to say anything else, Harry hung up, and turned his phone off for good measure.

Didn't he just feel like the world's biggest douche?


	19. Life as a Hunter Library

**Chapter 19 – Life as a Hunter Library:**

Harry spent the week after Sam and Dean's phone call fixing cars, free of charge. He needed something to do with his hands, to occupy his time and his mind with. Unfortunately, since he pretty much knew all the cars in Jackson inside and out by that point, he was working on auto-pilot, and so had more than enough time to think about everything that had happened. It hadn't been one of his best moments, or one of his best decisions.

He couldn't take more than a week of it.

In the end he hopped into his own car and drove all the way back to Nebraska and the Roadhouse, hoping it would be able to ease his mind.

Ellen was ecstatic to see him, though she hid it well. Jo was standoffish for the first two or three days, apparently miffed as hell that he didn't bother calling her often. No-one else really cared either way – he had, after all, only spoken to Ash the other week.

Slipping back into life at the Roadhouse was ridiculously easy; it was almost as though he had never left. He didn't plan on staying for too long, but he needed the company of other people – people in the know, not just random people – for a while.

He even actually indulged Ash in a beer or two. Never enough to veer anywhere close to drunk, but enough that Ash stopped being surprised when he accepted his offers.

Mostly he just spent an absurd amount of time on one of Ash's laptops.

No matter what he tried he hadn't been able to shake the feeling that there was something seriously bad going on out there, and that John was trying to put himself in the centre of it all. He needed to know what – even if the hows and whys were never explained.

Never let it be said that the internet was straight-forward. Yes, if you were looking for something normal, Harry supposed it would be better, but it was a long, drawn-out process to find what he was looking for.

He could find nothing concrete – he had nothing to go on, after all, apart from yellow eyes, and lore never spoke about eyes, not really. Hell, he couldn't even tell what lore was legitimate and what was bogus.

Alcohol and nerves fuelled his lengthy, time-consuming search.

When he narrowed down his options Harry figured it wouldn't hurt to simply make an educated guess on the topic. The problem was whether to risk giving that guess to Dean, who it would probably make a lot more sense to. But even if it did make sense to Dean, would he then be sending him off to some possibly deadly fight as well? He knew well enough that Dean was older than him, but only by a little bit, he argued to himself, and he didn't want him to do anything rash. At the same time, he could guess wrong. There could be exponential fall-out from that too.

It was such a pain!

His life would be so much simpler if he could stop forming random attachments to people. He'd never even met Dean before!

Ellen was concerned about him; especially that one morning when she walked into the bar to find not only Ash, but Harry as well passed out on the pool table – he'd passed out from exhaustion, not because he was drunk, but it still went against everything he normally did.

She had yelled at him, taken Ash's laptop off him and locked him in a spare room, ordering him to sleep. He'd grumbled for awhile, before acquiescing. The sleep cleared the fog from his mind, but made his choice no easier.

In the end it was guilt that made the decision for him.

He sent off a simple text to Dean - "Azazel?" - and tried to convince himself that he was washing his hands of the Winchesters, though he knew that wasn't true.

* * *

Harry ended up spending three months at the Roadhouse – much longer than he had originally intended. He wasn't complaining though. It had been fun, having Jo insult his form while she checked him over to make sure he'd been keeping up with his training.

He'd also forcibly been introduced to another info-guy.

This guy, Bobby Singer, was his kind of guy – all books and no computer. But he didn't exactly feel like comparing notes, so he simply wrote down his number and left it at that.

* * *

Going back home to Jackson – Harry still found it weird calling Jackson home, when he was so used to Privet Drive, Grimmauld Place and Hogwarts – wasn't exactly high on his priority list, but he'd pretty much expended his capacity for road-tripping while looking for a place to live. There was nothing to draw his attention elsewhere – he didn't want to encroach on some hunter's work, because he was in absolutely no mood to deal with a shitty hunter – so he was resigned to going home.

The main reason he wasn't overly looking forward to going back to Jackson was because, while working for everyone, they'd all gotten rather friendly towards him. If it were just that, it would be fine, but to them, friendly seemed to mean nosy. If anyone did something or went somewhere they wanted to know who, what, where and why. Only the wizards had been that nosy about his life back in England, and that was because they couldn't afford him running off and getting himself killed before he could defeat Voldemort.

He didn't appreciate the lack of perceived privacy.

But still, home was home, and he could always just lock the doors and unplug the land-line in order to get away from them for awhile. They weren't so nosy that they'd throw a brick through his window or pick the lock like Cassidy was known to do. If they were he'd have moved out ages ago.

His house had a ridiculously dilapidated feel to it when he returned. Sure it was dark and a bit dusty and he needed to go shopping for food the moment he got back, but it wasn't that bad. He'd only been gone three months. Nothing had crawled in and died, nothing had leaked, nothing had gone off – he'd thrown all his food out before he left, not sure when he'd be back – nothing had broken, and there had been no spontaneous electrical fires. There were no demons trapped in the many circles around the house, no disturbed salt lines, nothing had mysteriously vanished.

It was perfectly fine, and for some reason that annoyed him.

Why  _wasn't_  anyone out to get him? What about all those demons who hated Crowley? Why had none of them come after him?

All the time he'd spent on the internet looking up things about Azazel, well, maybe he shouldn't have. He was getting paranoid with all the different demon lore he'd stumbled across.

Sometimes he wished he could just obliviate himself. That way he wouldn't be so on edge.

* * *

Nerves and the still lingering guilt eventually forced Harry to do something he hadn't done, well, ever, since he left England.

He actually rang Cassidy. It was a long shot really – it had been years and years, who said she even still lived in the same place?

Harry held his breath as the phone rang.

"Hello, this is Cassidy."

Harry nearly laughed at the sound of her voice. He shouldn't have doubted her. He should have called her sooner. Much sooner.

She was going to be so mad at him.

"Hey. I don't know if you, ah, remember me but, well, it's Harry."

There was a long pause. Harry could almost hear her teeth grinding in irritation. It was a beautiful sound to him. Eventually she sighed loudly down the phone.

"You have no idea how much I want to yell at you right now young man, but I suppose that would be counter-productive..."

"It's good to hear your voice Cassidy. I was half expecting you to just hang up on me."

"I probably should too! But Nathan would kill me if he found out you rang and I hung up on you. So I'm going to give you a chance to explain, though lord knows you don't deserve it. We thought you'd been kidnapped until we managed to break into your apartment and found all your bloody books gone!"

"I-"

"And why the hell didn't you call earlier?! It's been seven years Harry! You could have been dead for all we knew!"

That was true. Harry hadn't really stopped to think of what it would seem like for them when he suddenly up and disappeared. His reasoning wouldn't stand up to her scrutiny, because she didn't know most of the story. He had been trying to cut all ties with England, just in case – in case of what, he was no longer sure, but it had been just in case.

"I just needed to get away." Harry told her quietly, thinking back to how he had been coping – or rather, not coping – back then.

"... I suppose I can't blame you for it... It's just a shame that I – we – couldn't be enough for you though."

Oh man. There was enough raw emotion in her voice to imply that it was simply her thoughts, but he knew her, she was sneaky, and she was guilt-tripping him. Damn. But he definitely deserved it this time. He could take it in stride.

"Hey, you know me, I didn't want to be a burden. There was simply too much history for me around London. I'm coping much better where I am now."

"And where  _are_  you?"

"America."

"Bloody hell, of course you are."

Harry could imagine her shaking her head in exasperation. It was one of her favourite expressions when it came to him.

"Yeah. You don't have to worry about me anymore though. I really just needed to hear your voice – things have been sort of hectic at the moment."

"I'm honestly not sure if I want to know. Listen... Nathan is coming over in two weeks. He's staying for a month. You had better ring at some point during that month and talk to Nathan; if you don't I'll track you down and drag you back home, understand?"

Chuckling lightly, glad that she wasn't  _too_  mad, Harry pulled his chain from under his shirt and examined it as he listened to her talk about all the things that had happened while he was gone. They were family too, and it was nice to patch things up. At least this way, if something happened to him they'd leave on good terms.

It made him realise that he should probably make peace with other parts of his life as well.

Not the wizards as a whole, that would be too much too soon, but perhaps at least with himself, his heritage. Holding his phone against his shoulder with his ear, he used his hands to unclasp the chain of his necklace and pulled it off, letting the rings slide off the ends. He held them in his hand, weighing the metal.

"I can do this," he muttered to himself, interrupting Cassidy's story-telling.

"What?" She asked, confused.

Harry shook his head, although she couldn't possibly see it.

"I will definitely remember to ring you back," he offered, straightening up and cradling the phone in his hand again.

"Oh. Well, good then."

"I should probably go now though, before my phone bill gets any higher."

"Right, sure, sure. Goodbye Harry."

"Goodbye."

Hanging up Harry put the phone down on the side-table and shifted all of his attention to the two rings in his hand.

Potter and Black.

Theoretically, no-one should know what that meant here in America. It should be safe. They were just rings.

_Just rings._

What was the good in hiding them away?

No, he needed to start embracing himself and who he was, magic or no magic.

Making his mind up, Harry slipped the rings onto his fingers.

That would have to do for now.

* * *

If only Harry knew what sort of mayhem would come about when he next heard from any of the Winchesters, perhaps he might not have allowed himself to relax.


	20. Mortality Check

**Chapter 20 – Mortality Check:**

Harry had been having a perfectly relaxing day – a perfectly relaxing week even, which was still something he was having difficulty believing actually  _happened_  – up until the moment his phone rang.

He was expecting a hunt. What he got was much worse – and much more unexpected.

What he got, was the frantic news that John and Dean Winchester were laid up in hospital – Dean in a coma of all things – after a freak car accident with demonic origins.

What had he told John about going after demons?!

But in the end that didn't matter, not really. Sam, the poor, emotional guy, needed his help, because apparently John had sent him his way to gather some things.

'Some things' turned out to be both exactly what he would expect from John and a complete surprise. But he showed none of that shock when he met up with Sam halfway between Jackson and Memphis, armed with all of the various things John had requested of him.

His first impression of Sam Winchester, in the flesh? Tall. Then Harry blinked, and all he could see was the terror in his expressive eyes. Clenching the bag tightly in one hand, he marched straight over and, unsure as to how exactly to comfort him, offered his other hand in a handshake – hey, they hadn't been formally introduced yet, so it wasn't that weird.

Sam's hand was trembling – not surprising, considering the situation – and Harry gripped it tight, staring up into shadowed eyes and trying to exude some sort of understanding. He wasn't sure if it worked or not, but Sam offered up a weak smile as Harry took his hand back.

The rest of the drive to Memphis had Harry deep in thought. He knew precisely what those damned ingredients were for – he'd been there after all, although he'd been more crossroads – grant my wish, I don't care who or how – while John was going for a specific summoning; Azazel, he assumed. Sam obviously didn't know – he'd be way more pissed off if he knew, going from what Harry remembered of the last and only time they had ever spoken.

He felt for the kid – and he really had no right calling him a kid, he was only a few years older than him, but in this moment he really was just a scared kid, about to lose the rest of his family – and he was going to at least try his best to convince  _himself_  that John was doing the right thing; or rather, that John knew what effect what he was planning to do would have. If he was going to aid in Samuel Winchester losing a family member, he didn't want to feel any guiltier about it than necessary.

* * *

Harry hated hospitals. Always had, always would. Sam led him down the bright white corridors towards John's room, fingers twitching anxiously at his sides. The guy was freaking out – probably had been since before he even called. Harry could see that the stress was eating away at him.

When they reached John's room, Harry held out a hand to stop Sam from going in. When he glanced up – or rather, across and down, considering Harry's shorter stature – at Harry, he smiled softly, and gestured down the hall.

"Go get some coffee Sam, you're dead on your feet. I'll give him everything, we're right here. You'll know if I run off. I promise I'm not going to."

Sam was a bit disbelieving – understandable – but acquiesced anyway, slowing loping off down the corridors. Standing before the door Harry took a deep breath, clutching the paper bag tightly in his left hand, scrunching it up and partly wishing he could just throw it all away. But it had to be done.

"Alright then," he muttered, lifting his right hand to the door handle, "Let's do this."

Harry burst into the room rather more dramatically than he had intended, slamming the door shut behind him and making John jump in surprise – he had been dozing in bed, obviously waiting for Sam's return. It took him a moment to realise that he was breathing heavily as well – he must have been more frustrated than he realised. Taking another deep breath he threw the bag down on John's bedside table, and steeled himself to engage in a tricky line of conversation.

"What do you know about magic?" John scoffed, staring at Harry in disbelief, wondering why the hell he would bring up something like that when he had been furious at him just moments beforehand.

"It doesn't exist." John decided to humour Harry, since he  _had_  brought him everything he'd asked for, even knowing exactly what they would be used for. It also seemed like he hadn't told Sam, which he was grateful for. "Witches get their powers from demons – it isn't magic."

Harry simply smiled indulgently at John and made himself comfortable in the chair next to the hospital bed.

"John, I'm going to tell you a story. You probably won't believe me, but I swear that it's true." Absently Harry twisted his family ring around his finger, a nervous trait he'd immediately picked up when he decided to wear them.

"Most people aren't aware of this, but there are small hidden communities of witches and wizards scattered across the world. These magic users believe in demons about as much as your regular non-religious civilian, and are born with their powers."

"That's not possible." John protested, scrutinising every nuance of Harry's expression as he spoke.

"It is. No-one quite knows how or why, but it happens. Anyway, just like any other group of people in the world, there are good people and evil people. Generally speaking there's roughly one Dark Lord or Lady every century, more often than not in England or surrounding European magical nations. In the 20th century, England suffered the wrath of two Dark Lords. The second is the one I'm going to concentrate on. His name – his assumed name anyway – was Lord Voldemort."

"Flight from death." John mused, and Harry laughed.

"Yeah, it was a pretty dumb name. But anyway, he was all sorts of bad. Then one day a prophecy was made detailing his demise. Seeing as he was absolutely terrified of dying, he set about trying to prevent it from coming to pass. You know how he did that? By trying to kill a baby."

"A  _baby_."

"Exactly."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"All in good time John, all in good time. But back to the story. Voldemort was unable to kill the baby, although he quite successfully orphaned it. The baby's name was Harry Potter, and was heralded as a hero before he could even walk, because Voldemort supposedly disappeared that night. Fast-forward to his teenage years, and it was proven to the world that no, Voldemort  _hadn't_  perished, and so it was once more that boy's responsibility to get rid of him. Horrible, right? Forcing a teenager to do a nation's dirty work?"

Harry could see John frowning – regardless of whether or not he believed the story at the moment, it was rather easy to become mad at the wizarding world at large when told stories from Harry's perspective.

"And they pressured him and pushed him around and labelled him. One day they loved him, the next they hated him; sometimes they claimed him insane, others attention-seeking. Eventually it all became rather too much for him, and he dropped out of school and locked himself away from the majority of them, away from their judgement and their ridicule. But even with all that extra time on his hands he couldn't figure out what he was supposed to do. It wasn't until, during a battle with some of Voldemort's followers, he had an encounter with a man possessed by a demon, that he really began thinking of what he could do. Demons weren't supposed to exist, after all. There was a whole other  _other_  world out there. Surely he could use that to his advantage."

"So the demons got to England as well did they?"

Harry paused, twisting his ring back around the right way, and nodded in agreement.

"So he threw himself into research; first to save the possessed man, and then to see if he could help himself. Eventually he found something. A ritual to summon a crossroads demon. Now, Harry knew the price of demon deals – he was more than willing to sacrifice his soul if it would mean the destruction of Voldemort once and for all."

"Wait, are you trying to tell me that some kid was willing to  _sell his soul_  because some idiotic nation believed it was his responsibility?"

"Well, not exactly. By that point in time Harry was just sick of everything, and Voldemort had done a pretty decent job at ruining his life. He just wanted it to be over. So he summoned the demon, and he made a deal, only the demon decided he was too interesting to kill. He made an alternate offer. Keep his soul, but relinquish his magic to the demon. It was a strange request, but Harry really and truly did not care what price he had to pay any longer, as long as it got the job done. So he accepted the demon's terms, and together they destroyed Voldemort."

"...  _together._ "

"In a manner of speaking, yes. The ordeal nearly killed Harry, but if he were to die before the deal were to be fully carried out, the demon would lose out, no? So he might have aided him the tiniest bit, in the end. Just enough to prevent his death."

"Is there a point to this story, or is this you trying to stall me?"

"I suppose you could say it was both. But I know there's no stopping you. I didn't tell Sam because I know he would have assumed the worst, but I heard what's happened, and I'm pretty sure I know what you're going to do. The story ends with Harry Potter ditching his last name, picking up a new one, and moving to the States. There are things that can't always be explained, John, those you-had-to-be-there moments, and you know that better than most. I just wanted to tell you that I don't blame you, and I decided I should probably come clean to at least one person about what sort of things I've done in my life."

Harry unravelled the scarf from around his neck and pulled down the collar of his shirt, leaning forward slightly so that John could see the mark Crowley left on him.

"If it had been a regular deal, I would have gotten ten years, and those ten years would be up pretty soon really. Instead, I lost what made me me, and I had to re-find myself. There will be no easy out for you – the Underworld hates you Winchesters after all. But they will understand eventually."

"You're insane, you know that?" John said eventually, slightly paler than he had been in the beginning as he tried to process everything he had just been told. Hunter or no hunter that was a lot to take in. "And what, you coming clean to a dead man walking? What kind of conscience do you have anyway kid?"

"People generally reserve that statement for Ash, but I suppose I can see where you're coming from." Harry climbed to his feet and wound his scarf around his neck once more. "Besides John, right now it's the dead man who needs to hear the story most. It doesn't matter whether or not it weighs on my conscience." He then held his hand out to John. "Come on then, you've got stuff that needs doing, no? I'll stand watch."

John stared at Harry for a minute, and Harry allowed him to, judging to see if he believed he could still trust the young man before him. He eventually decided it didn't really matter, since he was about to throw his life away anyway.

"Ok then kid, have it your way."

Harry helped John climb out of the hospital bed, respectfully not saying anything about the standard-issue hospital-wear he'd been forced into. He picked the bag up before John had a chance to, not necessarily trusting him to actually have the strength not to drop it or let the wrong person see it. No-one was going to be able to guess what was really in there, but there were enough items prohibited in hospitals to be wary of any unmarked bag being carried by a shifty patient.

After guiding John down to a room the elder man deemed appropriate, Harry left him there and stood guard outside the door, his back to the metal. He didn't particularly fancy bearing witness to what was going to happen in there, good or bad. It was going to be ugly. John might not have realised it himself, but he had some serious anger issues.

Time passed; it could have been seconds, minutes, or hours. Harry highly doubted it was hours; his feet weren't asleep yet. Eventually John emerged, looking rather worse for wear, possessively clutching the bag to himself. It must have had something else in it now, for Harry could see no use in it otherwise.

"How'd it go?" Harry pressed, eyeing him in distaste, wondering not for the last time why it was always him stuck between a rock and a hard place.

"Take me upstairs." The demand caught Harry off-guard, and as he reached out automatically to grab John's shoulders he realised he was shaking. Well, they were both shaking. John from exertion, and Harry, well, he was nervous. Had he pretty much just aided John in taking his own life? Yeah, he probably had. True, if Harry had refused John probably would just have called someone else, but Harry had said yes.

He could understand though. An older, angry man for a young man. A teenager for a nation. Sacrifices, right? There was always a choice, a chance things would go their way without their intervention, but Harry and John were men of action – if they could do something, they would. Well, Harry not so much anymore, but there was only so much of a person's personality that they can suppress at once.

Together they hobbled and walked back through the corridors, passing a frantic Sam who quickly switched directions to herd them towards Dean's room. It was simply a whirlwind of bodies and colours and sounds. The closer they got to Dean's room the worse it got. Everything was in motion, and Harry momentarily wondered if he was going to pass out, before he realised that everything really  _was_  in motion. Doctors and nurses were everywhere; there was Sam, ushering them on; John, clutching Harry's arm so tightly it was sure to leave a bruise; and in the midst of it all, a hospital bed with a partially conscious Dean Winchester.

To anyone else, it would have been a miracle. To  _Sam_ , it was a miracle. For now anyway. There was no good way to brush off a person's father collapsing, dead, within minutes of their brother getting better. Not to a hunter anyway.

"He actually did it."

Harry twitched as John's breath brushed the exposed skin of his neck, whispering in wonder.

"What do you mean?"

"You think Azazel actually  _wanted_  to save Dean. Hell no. Killing me? No problem. But convincing him to let me see it happen before he took me? He drives a hard bargain."

"John?"

"Kid, I have minutes, at best. He probably won't believe it, coming from you, but I want you to tell Dean – later, after everything's done and he's released from the hospital – that I'm proud of him, and that I... I never should have blamed him for any of those things I blamed him for as a kid. He was a good kid. Just following orders. I was trying to save them, and I think I may have ruined them. But at least they'll have each other. I know who they can live without. Me. But without each other? They're nothing. Not anymore."

Using strength Harry hadn't realised he still possessed, John turned and began shuffling back towards his own room, dragging Harry in tow. Sam glanced back in confusion at them, but Harry could only shrug helplessly.

"John you prat, don't you want to say anything to Sam? He's right there!"

"No. I've said my piece to him. If I start again I'll probably mess it all up. And I don't want him to see it happen. The kid's got enough trauma as it is." He was getting weaker and weaker as they walked, and Harry was just about carrying him. They were around the corner from Dean's room though, and so John simply allowed himself to collapse on the ground with Harry hovering nervously over him. A glint of silver poked out of the top of the bag before it disappeared, accompanied by the tiniest whiff of sulphur.

"John..."

"Don't. You did good kid. Maybe I'll see you down in the pits one day and we can bash in a few demon skulls. Sound good?"

"I thought you weren't the sentimental type." Harry murmured, blinking back tears he knew would be scoffed at.

"I'm not, but Hell's going to get pretty lonely. Perhaps I wouldn't mind if you came to visit. Not too son though. I'll be counting." John was wheezing now, and Harry could only stare helplessly down at him as his systems began shutting down, one by one. His expression said it all. The pain must have been immense – the demon having one last laugh – but John refused to make a sound. At the exact moment John breathed his last breath Harry slammed his hand down on the nearest alarm before crouching down beside him.

"If you see Voldemort down there, give him hell for me," Harry whispered, rubbing at his eyes. It wasn't fair that the good people had to make all the sacrifices. The Winchesters were good people.

Sam didn't arrive with the flurry of nurses, and for that Harry was grateful. He wasn't sure he was up to their scrutiny and their disappointment just yet. When they took John away, Harry holed himself up in John's now empty hospital room and fell asleep in the chair next to the bed, hiding away from the world.

Life was never fair.

 


	21. Unwanted Company

**Chapter 21 – Unwanted Company:**

The hospital staff had been kind enough not to kick him out of the hospital until he awoke on his own, something that Harry was grateful for. In his current state he probably would have lashed out at anyone who tried to force him awake. It also allowed him a chance to calm down.

If the slightly sticky tracks down his face were anything to go by, Harry had been crying in his sleep. Were he to be perfectly honest, he barely knew John, and yet it felt as though he had cried more for him than he had for Sirius. He'd wanted to cry for Sirius though – he'd been in a state of shock; it had been unexpected. He'd known exactly what was going to happen to John.

It was times like this he really wished he still had his magic. If he'd had his magic he could have used it to heal Dean himself – although he'd never been very proficient at healing magic, he would have tried and tried until he was completely out of energy – and John wouldn't have had to make that deal. But that was a very big what if, spinning all the way back to the tail-end of last century when he first met Crowley, and definitely not the best thing to dwell on for the time being.

Dean had sort of been discharged by the time Harry left the hospital – the doctors had wanted him to stay, he'd wanted to leave, they had made a scene of sorts; probably been banned from the hospital while they were at it. By the sounds of it it was very typical Winchester behaviour, but it only made Harry depressed.

Of course, the fact that they were waiting to gang up on him when he left the hospital didn't really help his mood. The look in Dean's eyes said it all really. Sam must have told him his version of what went down, and he'd then pieced together what Sam had either missed or not wanted to acknowledge, and come to the correct conclusion that Harry had been in on it. It was perhaps an unfair judgement, but it was – or at least it would have been under better circumstances – partially a compliment really, that Dean thought that Harry was intelligent enough to know what was going on and that John apparently trusted him enough to let him in on it over anyone else.

"You okay man?" Sam asked him, forever the empathetic one – and still blissfully unaware of what had really happened. "The doctors wouldn't let us go in to see you, so we," he glanced over at Dean's disgruntled expression and back-tracked a little, 'well,  _I_ , was a bit worried. I don't think Dean really understands that this must be rough for you too."

And wasn't that just a solid punch to the gut?

Harry cringed slightly as Sam continued to talk. He wanted to ask if he could just leave now, regardless of how rude that may seem, but what came out instead was, "Are you going to have any sort of funeral for him?"

Dean bristled with anger, drawing himself up to his full – taller than Harry – height and glaring at the once-wizard.

"You have absolutely no right to ask that. In fact, I think you should leave."

Sam smacked him over the back of the head with a disappointed cry of " _Dean!_ ", even as Harry silently agreed with him. He tried to apologise with his eyes but, well, Dean wasn't really the subtle type. Harry doubted he noticed.

They lapsed into a charged silence; Dean glaring, Sam standing awkwardly on the sidelines, and Harry shuffling his feet.

Pulling himself together, Harry stilled his feet and met Dean's glare head-on.

"Sam, do you think I could talk to your brother alone for a bit?"

Dean raised an eyebrow at him in question, probably wondering if Harry  _wanted_  the stuffing beat out of him. Sam was indecisive – with good reason; it was hardly a friendly atmosphere even with him there to moderate. It wouldn't do for him to be within ear-shot – so really anywhere in the same 500m, if they started yelling – when they had their conversation, because it was going to be harsh, biting, accusatory, and possibly violent.

"Sam?"

Conflicted, Sam turned to his brother.

"Yeah Sammy, can you give us a minute?" Dean's tone was more biting than he probably intended, for Sam frowned deeply, sending them both calculating looks before acquiescing to their request and walking away.

"You know what my dad did," Dean shot at him as soon as Sam was out of ear-shot. Knowing that there was no point in denying it, Harry simply nodded, lips pressed into a thin line somewhat reminiscent of an annoyed Minerva McGonagall. "Why the hell didn't you stop him?!"

Harry folded his arms defensively across his chest, twisting the ring around his index finger with his thumb.

"Dean. Think about it for a moment. You were dying. Seriously, absolutely, irrevocably dying. Believe it or not, your father does love you. He couldn't bear to see you die when there was a chance he could prevent it. It was hardly my place to tell him what he could and couldn't do with his own life."

"Fuck you. You're trying to say it's my fault dad's dead?" Dean spat angrily, hands fisted at his sides, just waiting for the right opportunity to punch Harry in the face, no doubt.

Sighing heavily Harry reached up and rubbed at his temple. He got the distinct feeling he was going to have a migraine by the end of this discussion.

"Shut up. Don't twist my words. That's not what I meant and you know it. If you want to be angry at someone, go ahead and be angry at me," Harry offered, adding as a bitter afterthought, "that's all I'm really here for, after all."

"Good. Perfect then."

And Harry was flung to the ground from a strong punch to the jaw.

It was only Jo's rigorous training that saved him from a fracture, but even so his reaction time was too slow to prevent what was going to be an impressive bruise, likely accompanied by some swelling.

Shaking his head – slowly, carefully – Harry climbed back to his feet, settling his glasses back in their proper place.

"You going to do that again or are you finished?" Harry asked in an exhausted monotone, readying his stance for another blow. For a moment it looked as though Dean would indeed hit him again, but his scowl deepened and he dropped his fists back to his sides.

"The fuck's wrong with you man? Just standing there and letting me hit you. Get mad! Fight back! Do  _something!_ "

Harry wiped away the small trickle of blood flowing from the corner of his mouth and raised an eyebrow at Dean, mimicking the man's earlier action.

"What do you  _want_  me to do? I deserve whatever you throw at me. John told me to pass on a message, but I figure it can wait until you've pounded out your anger. Whatever you do to me, I've suffered through worse in the past."

That seemed to ignite some sort of light-bulb in Dean's mind.

"What, even if I killed you?" It was curiosity; Harry couldn't sense any actual killing-intent behind the question.

"You of all people Dean should know that there are worse things than death. In a life like this, death is the only way out – it's the saving grace, not the eternal punishment. So yes, Dean, I've suffered things much worse than death. And just so you know, you aren't the only person here who had a family member die saving them. Sometimes, you just have to get over it and be glad for what you still have."

Harry was past done talking to Dean; it was too taxing just then – it would possibly always be too taxing, dealing with such an abrasive personality, always quick to anger. People like that always rubbed him the wrong way; he didn't have the patience for them anymore. Turning on his heel he started walking away, intent on just finding his car and driving all the way home, regardless of what his neighbours would think if they saw him arrive back looking so beat up. He'd apologise to Sam some other time for being a dick and running out on them.

That was the plan anyway. He only managed a few steps before Dean pulled himself together enough to call after him.

"What did he say to you?"

Harry paused mid-step, half-turning back towards Dean.

"John said that he loves you, both of you, even if it never seemed like it. That he knew the two of you together would be able to cope better without him than Sam would have coped without you. And he essentially said he was sorry for raising you the way he did and ruining any chance of normalcy you might have had; he's worried he may have ruined you. But he was only doing what he thought best at the time. I understand that he probably didn't have much of a choice – believe it or not, he's actually a very emotionally driven person, not unlike Sam. He knew perfectly well what he was doing, and I guess he could only hope you two would be able to make things work."

When he finished his little speech Harry was a bit teary-eyed himself, and immediately turned away from Dean, only to come face to face – or rather, face to chest – with Sam, who had headed back over when he saw Harry moving to leave, assuming that their conversation was over and done with. He looked down, because he couldn't bring himself to look up, and saw Sam was shaking again.

"So he really did make a deal with Azazel then," Sam said weakly, voice heavy with emotion.

Harry choked out an affirmative and hung his head further, cursing himself as the tears started again. It was ridiculous, how much this one death was affecting him. He'd spoken with the man all of four times, hardly long enough to form a proper attachment, yet here he was, sobbing his heart out.

Winchesters leave impressions on people. And Harry was oh so susceptible.

An arm wrapped around his shoulders and he was pulled into Sam's chest. He struggled momentarily, but it was too much effort. Ceasing his struggles he collapsed forward, exhausted, and let himself cry. He pretended he couldn't feel Sam's tears falling on his head, and Dean maintained a respectful silence somewhere off to the side. Harry couldn't imagine him crying, but if he was, he wouldn't want any witnesses to it.

All in all it was just too much emotion at once. Harry had allowed himself to become so closed off from people that he rarely ever felt strong emotions, and certainly not in such quantities.

When the tears finally stopped he snaked an arm up and rubbed his eyes, mumbling a soft apology into Sam's shirt and squeezing his arm in thanks. He hadn't had a shoulder to cry on for a long time – in fact, he wasn't sure if he'd ever had one at all. Sam ruffled his hair – and it said something about how exhausted Harry was that he didn't even put up a token protest – before releasing him, taking a step back and subtly rubbing tear tracks off of his own face.

Dean cleared his throat and went to talk, but nothing came out. He cleared his throat again, coughed angrily, and stormed off. Harry bit his lip, holding back another sigh, and rolled his eyes, turning his back on Dean's retreating form.

Sam didn't smile at him, but he didn't frown either. It was something.

"We're going to have a hunter's funeral for him, in a few days. Do you want me to text you the details?"

Harry hesitated to answer. The idea of seeing Dean again so soon was incredibly off-putting, but at the same time he felt like he owed John enough to attend his 'funeral', whatever that may be.

It was a good thing Sam was patient; Harry was taking forever to make up his mind.

"Yes," he said eventually, meeting Sam's gaze. "Yes, I'll go. See you there."

Sam nodded slowly, obviously still concerned, and watched as Harry raced off to find his car.

* * *

Harry paid more attention than he normally did, trying to find somewhere to stay. He didn't want to end up at the same motel as the Winchesters, because that would be horrendously awkward. It would be for the best if he didn't run into either of them before the funeral – it would give  _all_  of them a chance to calm down, so that Dean hopefully wouldn't feel the need to punch him again. He was going to feel strange enough wandering around with a massive bruise on his chin.

In fact, Harry was so worried about it that he splashed out on a hotel and holed himself up in his room, not even leaving for food – he took full advantage of the long hours of room service. Apparently he  
was an 'eat your feelings' sort of person this month.

Sam, true to his word, texted him the day after, giving him a date, time, and address. The funeral was going to be in two days.

It almost seemed too soon. Although he was completely cried out, he was still emotionally unstable. When the  _Do Not Disturb_  sign fell off his door and the cleaner came into his room he'd snapped at her, reducing her to tears, before apologising profusely and offering her some chocolate from his always present stash. Needless to say she'd left incredibly confused, but at least she hadn't complained about him to management. It was one of the most embarrassing moments of his entire life. He was used to having some insane sort of iron control on his emotions, for the most part – minus heartfelt anger at whatever may have been happening at Hogwarts when he'd been back home. He'd never really been so out of sorts before. In its own way it was rather terrifying.

He just felt so  _wrong_  here. Nothing was how it should be. And if Dean punched him again, he'd deserve it.

Not that he wanted a grave-side brawl, even if Sam was the only one around to witness it.  _Especially_  if Sam was the only one around to witness it.

That thought made Harry groan out loud, rolling onto his stomach and burying his head under one of the pillows.

Sam Winchester was too kind a soul – his occupation aside – for Harry to get himself involved with. It almost seemed as though he would taint him, weigh him down with the failures and darkness of his own life. He needed to get away from them as soon as possible and never turn back.

Unfortunately, he knew that would never happen. Now Harry had an invested interest in the Winchesters. Out of all the hunters he had ever met, he wanted  _them_  to succeed the most, for  _them_  to survive above all else. Perhaps it was the way he could see bits of himself in each of them. Battle-weary, well, that was a given really, considering the way they'd been raised. In Dean there was a fierce protectiveness, not unlike what Harry used to show for his friends, always trying to protect them over himself when they got themselves into another dangerous situation. Sam possessed the look of someone who had been thrown headfirst into the harsh reality of the world; while Harry's world had always been harsh, there had of course been a breaking point where he just thought 'really? This is how things are going to be?'

He curled the pillow further around his head.

There would have been so many positives if this whole mess had never happened in the first place. The most obvious one? John wouldn't have died. Sure, it would have happened eventually, whether from a hunt, a disease, or god forbid from old age, but it wouldn't have happened  _now_. More importantly, it wouldn't have involved  _Harry_. Not being associated with their father's death would have meant that Harry's first meeting with Dean in-person wouldn't have involved him being punched in the face. That would also have been nice to avoid, although he did ask for it. Then there was Sam. Bloody Sam. Mister tall and sorrowful. Harry's whole being ached when he was around the guy, and he couldn't for the life of him figure out why.

So then, he decided, sitting up suddenly and listening absently as the pillow was sent tumbling to the floor. He would go to the funeral, say a quick farewell, then high-tail it out of Memphis.

It sounded like a good plan. In theory.

* * *

All too soon it was funeral day, and Harry was on the verge of attempting a rather Oliver Woods style stunt and trying to drown himself in the shower. But that was childish, and Harry was above such things now... Mostly. Still, it would be a very apt reason for missing the funeral: "Hey, sorry I couldn't make it, I was in hospital recovering from a partial drowning."

He was still all over the place, but he was trying to be resolute about his plan of action.

Yesterday he'd gone digging through a tiny magical pouch of family heirlooms and such that he'd scavenged from his vaults and kept on his person at all times, trying to find some token to offer. Sitting in the room, far away from his hectic shower, was a simple badge. Harry didn't know what it was for, but it had his family crest on it – and didn't everything? – and he wanted, as stupid as it might sound, to acknowledge that, in some crazy way, John had been important to the last Potter.

If his suspicions were correct, it was only going to get burned, but there was hardly anything else he was going to use it for. And maybe it would somehow find its way to John down in Hell, and he could use it to find Death Eaters.

Harry let out a strangled laugh, spluttering as he practically inhaled some of the water that sprayed down on him.

His phone beeped loudly at him from the bed, and Harry grimaced, reluctantly turning off the shower and stepping out of the awkward cubicle, wrapping a towel around his waist as he went. That was his 'get the fuck out of the shower or you're going to end up late' alarm. He'd set it specially, since he was in such an avoidant mood.

He dressed quickly, throwing on one of his tidier pairs of jeans and a button-up shirt in a presentable-casual sort of fashion, knowing better than to rock up in a suit – not that he owned one. His hair received some rough treatment from the towel, leaving it somewhat damp but not dripping, and sitting just a tiny bit flatter than usual as the remaining moisture weighed it down. The things he'd brought with him had already been chucked back in his car, and all he had left to do was check out of the hotel before he could leave.

He didn't ever plan on coming back.

The badge was slipped into his pocket along with his wallet, and then he was gone.

* * *

Despite his almost desperate desire to get lost, Harry actually arrived before the Winchesters. He wasn't a tardy person by nature, but he wouldn't have minded so much if he'd been late to this. It was easy to see that they had been there before, making preparations, because there was a large funeral pyre waiting for them. Burn the body. It was a hunter thing. Harry didn't find that his own funeral preferences warranted thinking about.

"At least it isn't raining," he muttered to himself as he climbed out of his car, taking measured steps towards the wooden construct. In a morbid way it could almost be considered beautiful, he supposed, though he'd never been the sort to find beauty in construction.

He wasn't alone for long. Right on time – surprisingly – the Winchesters pulled up in a rental car – as the story went, Dean's car was completely totalled in the crash. Of course, Dean didn't look all that pleased to see him, but Harry had been expecting that. He wasn't all that pleased to see Dean either. Sam, on the other hand, looked almost relieved to see him. Harry wasn't in the right frame of mind to wonder why that might have been.

They quickly set to work completing the pyre, dousing everything in gasoline as they went. Once they were done Dean stood next to it, impatiently flicking a lighter on and off, while Sam sent a questioning look at Harry. Realising it was time, Harry dug around in his pocket for the badge, simply holding it in his palm for a while, before walking over and placing it on John's folded hands. It was an odd experience for Harry; John was the first peaceful-looking dead body he had ever seen. Wizarding deaths were brutal in war-time. Peaceful deaths were a myth.

Stepping back he nodded at Sam, which Dean took as his cue to set the pyre alight. Harry watched in twisted fascination as the gold slowly heated, began to bubble, and then melted as the flames grew higher and stronger. Briefly his thoughts were drawn to Seamus, a boy with a certain proclivity for fire and explosions, as he watched the flames. Silly really, to think on a classmate of years past while at the funeral of someone else. But Harry wasn't good with death, not like everyone thought he was. He... processed things differently, in regards to that particular fact of life. As a coping mechanism, he supposed, he distanced himself from death. His own death truly meant nothing to him – it would be a relief even – but other people didn't deserve to die.

Voldemort came to mind and he quickly altered his thought.

 _Most_  people didn't deserve to die.

He didn't even realise it was over until Sam nudged him rather frantically – it mustn't have been the first time; Harry hadn't noticed he was so lost in thought, since he was usually very physically aware.

"You okay?" came the inevitable question. And Harry's answer actually surprised himself.

"Yeah."

And in a way, he was. The whole issue would never be okay, but  _he_  was. It was as though the fire had burned away all of his anxiety and grief and fear and whatever the hell else had been going on inside his head. Perhaps there were positives to hunter funerals after all. Maybe everyone should be heralded to the next life via flame.

"What did you give him?" Sam hedged, trying for a conversation of sorts before they went their separate ways.

Harry smiled softly with tired eyes.

"A thank you."

And in a way, it was.

Half-turning to face the hulking figure of Sam Winchester Harry simply stared for a moment. The stare meant everything and yet nothing, and before Sam had a chance to become uncomfortable Harry had blinked and decided to continue on a vein of thought aloud.

"If you ever need someone to talk to, you know, that isn't as..." Harry struggled to find a nicer way of saying what he meant, but failed, "irritable and prone to anger and quick judgements, as Dean, then I'm just a phone call away. If you want. Uh..." As he continued on Harry's courage fled and he stammered and flushed slightly in embarrassment. It was a silly notion, Sam was hardly going to-

"Thanks man. It might be nice to be able to talk about this shit to someone younger than Bobby, you know?"

"No problem." And Harry was very proud to note that he managed not to sound too eager, although he didn't know why he was even feeling eager in the first place, which would have made the whole thing incredibly awkward. Well, more awkward than it already was.

"See you around."

And just like that, the Winchesters were gone.

Harry almost felt like saying 'Good riddance', but really now, that was just tempting Fate, and he was never sure which way the scales would fall.


	22. A New Deal

**Chapter 22 – A New Deal:**

Harry hadn't left his house in days. It might have been more than a week now; he couldn't be certain. He wasn't grieving, per say, he was more...  _moping_. All that grief stuff was done and dusted, but he was still feeling a bit put out. Twitchy almost. Like he was itching to just  _do something_ , but he didn't know what.

Sometimes he had mind blanks. It happened to everyone. This time it was more of an elusive thought.

Harry sat up, crossing his legs and staring up at the ceiling. His neck was tingling.

Actually, if he cared to think about it, his neck had been tingling for quite some time now; weeks, maybe even months, he'd simply tuned it out. In a way it was reminiscent of how his scar would throb when Voldemort was particularly angry. Was Crowley in some pissy mood? Was that his problem? Did demons even  _have_  moods that were noticeably worse than what they were normally like? He certainly couldn't imagine Crowley having a tantrum – but perhaps that was more due to the respectable elder man he was wearing rather than what Harry actually knew about him. After all, what was there to know about a demon?

As he would later learn, quite a lot.

But Crowley didn't really concern Harry any more. He'd washed his hands of the demon, so to speak, and could only hope that he was never required to actually  _do_  anything for the Crossroads King ever again.

Oh, but Fate was never kind to Harry Potter, and he really shouldn't have expected anything else.

Still, he startled when the demon materialised suddenly in his living room, straight into the armchair he had been contemplating moving to from his position on the floor.

"What did I tell you about doing that?" Harry asked tiredly, slumping back down into an untidy heap on the carpet.

"Not very witty today luv, bad week?" While it was an innocent enough question – coming from a normal person, not Crowley – it was laced with enough humour to show that Crowley knew what he was talking about; no doubt it had been big news down in Hell, "We finally got a Winchester!" and all that.

"Bugger off."

"Charming. But unfortunately I didn't come all the way here to listen to your pathetic attempts at making me leave. I have a rather pressing  _issue_  that I... require... your assistance with."

Harry blinked owlishly up at the well-dressed figure in his chair. Surely he hadn't heard that right.  _Crowley_  wanted, no,  _needed_ , his help? Never.

"That's funny, really, but as you can see I'm not really in much of a position to help anyone, especially not you."

Crowley actually  _sighed_. It was all frustration and exhaustion. Obviously he didn't really want to be asking for Harry's help, but for some reason or another he'd pegged him as the best person to go to. Harry didn't know anything better than anyone else, surely there was someone-

Oh.

Right.

Magic.

What, couldn't he use it properly? Well boo-hoo, it wasn't his to begin with.

Harry was a bit bitter about the whole thing now. Hind-sight was a bitch.

"Sometimes I regret not just taking your soul, boy," Crowley muttered darkly, eyeing him speculatively over a conjured glass of whiskey. The casual use of magic made Harry frown. "That way I never would have had to put up with any of this," he gestured vaguely with the glass, which only confused Harry further. Did the demon not like his house or something? It's not like he was obliged to spend any time there, so what did it matter?

"If you don't like 'this'," Harry mimicked Crowley's gesture, "then I'll say it again. Feel free to leave. Do you even need to be here?"

The irate demon glared harshly at Harry, banishing the glass with a lazy flick of his wrist. It pissed him off to see Crowley using his magic. Before it had simply been a sub-conscious knowledge that his magic was in Crowley's possession; he'd never envisioned the demon actually being able to use it. And he had the nerve to look so bored and irritable!

"Your magic; it is convenient, yes. To a point. When I'm in Hell, Hell adjacent land, or one of my bases on the surface, it is fine. Generally speaking. I know well that I have not been able to figure out even a portion of its potential, I cannot utilise it the same way you were able. Though it is a frustration, it was what I expected. Forcing things never wields quite the same result as when something is done willingly."

Harry groaned in frustration and rolled over, wondering how childish it would seem if he were to cover his ears. Maybe he should hum too. Why was he supposed to care if Crowley found his magic unsatisfactory?

"I realised that your magic had limits. What I didn't realise at the time was that it had rules too. An unusual and misfortunate oversight on my behalf, I'll admit. With the strife your kind were involved in at the time it seemed a ridiculous notion that you might have had some sort of law enforcement, not with you, a mere teenage boy, willing to sacrifice his eternal soul to stop a madman. They must have been truly incompetent in Britain."

If Harry actually cared he might have come to the defence of the British Aurors, but when put like that they  _did_  seem as though they were incapable of doing their jobs. He only knew a handful of Aurors anyway, and he didn't like most of them. They had treated him as a child and a saviour at the same time – 'You're too young to come with us; we can't afford to have you getting injured.'

"Unfortunately, the same can apparently not be said for the States. They, it would seem, are more than competent in their work, and highly disapprove of me using magic in front of... what was the word they used? Ah, yes. _Muggles._  Which means unless I want to be hunted down every single time I make a deal, I can no longer utilise your magic in my preferred manner – for theatricality."

Harry admittedly did a double-take at that. Crowley had been using his magic to be  _dramatic?!_  Of course, if he really hadn't figured out how to do much other than summoning and banishing – it wasn't conjuring, because transfiguration wasn't something you just 'picked up' without training – then it wouldn't be very good to him for much. At least he was getting  _some_  use out of it, Harry supposed bitterly.

Oh how he wished he could have seen Crowley's face when the Aurors turned up that first time. It would have been priceless.

"Well what do you expect me to do about it? It's not my magic anymore, it's yours, remember?" Harry griped, irritably tapping his fingers against the carpet. Crowley confused the hell out of him sometimes.

And he really had to stop using the word hell in association with the demon, it just seemed like a pun in his mind.

"Well that's the thing now, isn't it? You see, I'm not sure I can be bothered putting up with it anymore. It just isn't worth it."

"Then don't bloody well use it. That doesn't mean you have to come and gripe at me. It's hardly my fault that magical people have to follow rules too."

"Not your fault, true, but you do possess an understanding of them that I...  _lack_ ," Crowley spat the last word, as though it left a foul taste in his mouth.

Harry couldn't be bothered putting up with him any longer. Climbing to his feet he moved to leave the room, leave Crowley to his ranting until he got it through his thick skull that he wasn't wanted there.

Crowley had other plans.

Crossing the room in the blink of an eye Crowley grasped Harry's arm in an iron grip, pulling him to a stop, and, unexpectedly and with no warning, plunged his other hand into Harry's stomach.

" _Fuck!_ " Harry shouted at the intrusion, trying to twist away from it but unable to move. It was the second time he'd had to deal with Crowley messing with his insides, and he hadn't been particularly keen on it happening again after the first incident.

Something seemed to flow from Crowley's hand, spreading through him, filling him up, but oh how it  _burned._  It felt like his entire body was on fire, and for all he knew it could have been. His eyes were screwed shut, and his knees would have collapsed from under him had Crowley not been holding him upright.

The tiny part of his mind that wasn't enveloped in pain was musing. 'Gee, didn't that feel familiar?'

It was over before he knew it, and then he was in a heap on the floor once more, this time not by choice, but necessity. His limbs ached, flaring with old cruciatus pains he'd thought long gone. His head was pounding and he was severely dazed.

If he tried hard enough, he could just make out the outline of Crowley's figure hovering over him – watchful, not worried.

"What... did you... do to me... this time?" Harry rasped, trying to take steady breaths and fight off the pain.

"Do you know what we crossroads demons are particularly skilled at?" Crowley asked lightly, as though Harry  _wasn't_  on the floor and he hadn't been the one to put him there. "Binding contracts. Part of the job description, really. I can even twist the details of a deal without informing the other party, if I so desired. Now, you really shouldn't be glaring so accusingly luv, because I just gave you a gift!"

"Yeah right..." Harry muttered, still breathless. Then the rest of what Crowley had said hit him. Changing the terms of a deal. He suddenly knew exactly what had just happened; but what was the cost this time? It could be nothing good.

"Oh, figured it out have you?" The demon mocked in a tone far too happy to be assuring in any way, shape or form. Oh, it must be a horrendous deal then. For Harry; it was probably the greatest thing to happen to Crowley since he got the magic in the first place, and that was a long near-ten years of no good news.

"Normally I don't do this, see, because you have to give back what you previously took – and why on Earth would I give someone  _back_  their soul when they have nothing else of worth to give me? But this time, that magic of yours is put to better use by the person it belongs to. So you'll just have to belong to me."

Harry's eyes widened in shock and he cursed the day he ever thought it was a good idea to summon a demon. His life could never be simple now could it? He was going to be Fate's plaything till the day he died. Or rather, he'd be  _Crowley's_  plaything... Right then he didn't know which sounded worse.

"Why am I so thrice-damned interesting to you people?" Harry hissed out through gritted teeth. Crowley raised an eyebrow in amusement, but didn't feel the need to try and answer him. Harry hadn't expected him to. It would be nice though, if one day he could figure out what the answer was.

"Get up soldier dearest, I'm sure you've been in worse pain than that before."

Soldier, wasn't that a comforting thought?

Breathing angrily through his nose, teeth still clenched against the pain, Harry slowly worked his way to his feet. His legs trembled and he swayed on the spot, but he was up. At least that way he was eye to eye with Crowley, and could glare more effectively.

Magic raced and bubbled beneath his skin, and though it should have been a familiar and welcome sensation, it really wasn't. There was the simple wrongness of it being there after so long without, and then there was a sense that it had been tainted. His magic carried Crowley's taint in it now, and he could feel the demonic essence running through his veins.

It wouldn't be as simple as that, it was never that simple.

"What is the cost this time?" Harry demanded, wanting it out in the open so he knew what he had to deal with.

"Nothing too bad,"' Crowley said in a faux-reassuring manner. "I say jump, you jump. Get the idea?"

Unfortunately, that's more or less what Harry had anticipated. It didn't make it sound any more appealing.

"And if I don't?" He challenged, fists clenched at his sides.

"I think we'll run on a case by case basis, but in the end, if you refuse me? You die and I get to boss around your soul for the rest of eternity anyway. It isn't such a bad deal. You be an obedient servant and I won't sentence you to the racks once you die; you'll have a torture-free afterlife in Hell."

Harry couldn't see that happening, but he was in no position to complain.

Sighing in defeat, Harry fell to his knees and looked down at the carpet.

" _Fine,_ " he spat, though he had no say.

Wizard turned muggle turned magical servant.

Nothing ever went right for long.


	23. Communication Difficulties

**Chapter 23 – Communication Difficulties:**

Harry was in no mood to deal with anything. Even Ellen had picked up on it, during one of their few and far between phone calls. She couldn't get any answers out of him, and neither could Jo when she repossessed the phone and had a go at him for never calling. Harry, ever calm, patient Harry, had snapped at the both of them and hung up.

It was completely different to when he lost his magic. Then he had felt empty, now he felt disgusting. With his newly magically enhanced senses, Harry could practically feel the demon taint running through his veins. It made him feel unclean.

Though he hadn't been a freak before, perhaps now he really deserved that title. After all, how many people could claim to have bits of demon floating around inside of them?

(There were many, though Harry wasn't to know that.)

* * *

Music permeated the room. Harry lay on the couch, glaring at his cell. How dare someone have the nerve to ring him right now? He was having a moral crisis!

Still, he could always yell at them. That would let him work off some stress. Whoever was on the other end really had it coming to them; Harry had it on good authority that he could yell quite loudly.

Grabbing his phone and rolling onto his back Harry didn't even bother checking the caller id before answering.

" _What?_ " He grouched, not bothering to hide his irritation.

"Uh, Harry?"

Oh. Harry felt an odd little twinge of guilt. That changed things.

"Oh, uh, sorry Sam. I thought you were someone else. What's up?" Harry forced some fake cheer into his voice, which he was sure wouldn't fool Sam for a second. After all, hunters seemed to be pretty big on faking the lighter emotions.

"Is this a bad time? I could... I could just go, if you want; it's not that important."

That was a lie if he'd ever heard one. This was the first time Sam had contacted him since the funeral, which was... however long ago, he wasn't sure anymore, had stopped keeping track of time again. But something must have happened. He didn't just roll out of bed that morning thinking 'Gosh, I'd better ring Harry'. Life didn't work that way.

"I'm free as air Sam, talk all you want."

Admittedly he was morbidly curious. Morbidly, because there was a quiver in Sam's voice that he couldn't completely hide, which spoke volumes about whatever had happened. Curious because, well, because it was Sam.

He hadn't managed to wrap his mind around that logic yet. For the time being he let it go once more.

Sam sighed on the other end, a crackling of static.

"Have you ever heard of... psychics?"

Harry almost asked 'Magical or muggle?' Instead he managed "What, like mind-reading or seeing the future? Sure, never met one though." Trelawny and her very occasional prophecies definitely didn't count in his books, and Luna was still a mystery.

"Well, I have. Just now really. Not telepathy or telekinesis or anything like that though. He – they – had power over speech. If that makes sense."

"Like Bragi?" Harry mused. Sam was stumped at that.

"Sorry, like what?"

"Bragi. Norse god. Lore goes that he can make people do whatever he tells them. The power of ultimate 'suggestion'."

"Ok, yeah, sure, like that then. There were these two brothers, twins, separated at birth. They both had the same power. Long story short we went after the first brother, Andy, thinking he was killing people with his powers. He wasn't. It was his brother, who he hadn't even known existed. His brother was... I'd like to say he was insane, it might have justified it just a little bit, but he wasn't. He was just mad at the world. Andy had to kill his own brother to stop him from killing his ex."

It all came out in a rush, as Sam explained the goings on of the last while. Harry could tell there were things he was leaving out, but he wasn't exactly in a position to complain about being left out of the loop.

What mattered the most was the depression in his voice, tinged with hysteria. Sam hadn't come out of it in a good way. It affected him more than it perhaps should have, if it were just about the killing thing.

Or maybe it didn't. Maybe Sam was just terrified that somehow, someday he might be forced into a similar situation with Dean. Harry didn't like to think what might happen if he were put in that situation with, say, Jo. She was like a little sister to him, and he couldn't imagine having to kill or be killed. It would wreck him.

For Andy, the shock would have been less. He'd only known this brother of his for probably a day, maybe less than, before the confrontation went down. Hardly enough time to get attached. He would be haunted more by the fact that he had commanded someone to their death than by the fact that it was his biological brother.

"You talked to Dean about all this?" Harry asked, cutting off Sam's continued babbling. He and Dean didn't have much of a positive relationship, and he hadn't gotten the greatest impression from him after meeting the guy in person, but he was Sam's brother, and therefore should really be the first person he went to with problems like this – even better, since Dean actually knew, in detail, what had happened, while Harry lacked most of the information. Perhaps that was why though – he needed someone who didn't know, who hadn't been there, that he could just ramble at and not have it matter whether or not he made sense.

"No..." Sam admitted, sounding rather reluctant. "Dean... he doesn't like talking about feelings. That's not to say he doesn't feel, because I know he does, but you just can't talk to him. I figured... hoped... that you wouldn't mind. That you might understand, at least a little bit. Talking to Bobby would be... it wouldn't work. He's too... I love him, you know? He's like an Uncle to me, but not someone you really want to talk to about... things."

Sam seemed calmer now, and Harry would have been content to simply let him ramble to his hearts content about lighter topics, but that apparently wasn't on the agenda for today's phone call.

"I mean, is it? Okay, I mean, for me to go on at you like this?" Sam asked carefully, thinking too much again now that some of his oppressive anxiety was gone. Harry rolled his eyes, wondering briefly how Sam ever got anything done when he was always worrying about the other person and never about himself.

"Jeez Sam, for once in your life worry about yourself first. It's  _fine_. If it bothered me you'd know about it." And really he should have already got the message that Harry wasn't afraid to tell people to fuck off, if the way he answered the phone was anything to go by. "You needed to let off steam, so let it out. Lean on me. It's not like I don't know how to cope with emotional baggage."

"You... You're weird," Sam exclaimed somewhat lamely, unable to think of anything decent to say in response.

"Coming from a Winchester?" Harry laughed, drawing patterns on the couch cushion with his free hand. "That's almost a compliment."

"Well, I, uh..."

Harry glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was late. Sam had been talking for a while.

"Sam? Do me a favour and get some sleep. You're no good to anyone exhausted."

He put up a feeble protest, but Harry could hear the exhaustion seeping through in his voice. The guy was wrecked. He knew from experience that a tired hunter could quickly become a dead hunter, and Harry wasn't all that keen on the prospect of Sam dying any time soon.

"Fine, fine, I'm going," Sam conceded defeat, a wise move. "Really though, thanks for listening." And before giving Harry a chance to respond, Sam hung up. Just like that.

"Well then," Harry stated, pulling his phone away from his ear and putting it on the couch next to him, "That was different."

* * *

The second time Sam called, Harry was probably more freaked out than he was. He had called Ash the day before, just hoping to blow off some steam, and discovered that Jo had run off with the Winchesters. It wasn't that he didn't trust Sam to look after her, but he knew Jo, and she could be bloody reckless when she felt like it. Stubborn too.

It was a relief to see the number flashing on his screen, when all his previous attempts of contacting the younger man had fallen through.

"Sam, is Jo okay?!"

"Wha- Yes, in a manner of speaking."

That wasn't the most reassuring thing Harry had ever heard. He made a note to ring Jo, or perhaps Ellen, after this, just to make sure they  _were_  okay – he remembered Ellen's dislike of John, and knew well from experience how grudges could span generations.

"Tell me what happened."

"Well... Jo followed us on a hunt, insisted on joining us."

"I gathered as much from Ash. She doesn't give you any choice in the matter when she's made up her mind about something. But, I mean, Ash was practically hysterical, you know, for him, kept saying how Jo was gone and Ellen had gone after her and everything was going to hell – though that might have been because he was left in charge of the Roadhouse..." Harry trailed off slightly, thoughts momentarily becoming locked on his friend rather than his panic. Ceasing the pacing he had picked up before Sam called him back, Harry sunk to the floor, sitting cross-legged on the carpet in his lounge.

"It.. it was horrible. Honestly, we nearly lost her."

"Nearly what? Oh Merlin," Harry muttered faintly, burying his head in his hand. Sam seemed to sense his tension, and hurried on.

"I mean, she isn't injured or anything, maybe a couple of scratches but nothing bad. It was... I don't think it was the hunt that's got her annoyed now. Ellen must have said something to her after we got back to the Roadhouse. But I sweat to you that she's fine."

"Sam, calm down," Harry pleaded, fingers pulling harshly at his hair as he tried to think through everything he had just said. "I believe you, okay? It wasn't your fault. And maybe you managed to convince her that hunting's a bad idea after all." He wasn't naïve enough to believe that that was the case, but he could always hope. He didn't want his little sister getting caught up in hunting.

"I'm really sorry Harry. You must have been pretty worried all this time, huh?"

He wasn't sure if he'd ever mentioned his relationship with Jo to Sam before. Maybe Jo or Ellen had told them? It was more likely that Sam worked it out on his own. Harry was sort of glad he didn't have to explain it. He had shared Sam's pain last time, and now the tables had been flipped, and he was almost leaning on Sam for support. Crazy right? That two people who barely knew each other could come to rely so heavily on one another, emotionally speaking.

But that's just how Harry was. He tried so hard not to, but he made too many emotional attachments. Jo had been unavoidable; Sam was... unexpected.

They spoke for an hour after that, of less stressful things, helping each other calm down from the tense situation that had developed both during the beginning of the call and over the last two days. It was nice, Harry realised, talking to someone around his own age for once. He missed it.

Still, he promised himself he wouldn't seek Sam out.

* * *

The third time Sam calls, it catches Harry more off-guard than he would care to admit.

Of course, there was a perfectly acceptable explanation for that.

Who would have thought he'd have gotten such good reception in Hell?

Crowley, the reason he was Downstairs and not currently at home watching bad television and pretending he didn't exist, watched him in amusement from across the table. When it appeared that Harry wasn't going to answer, Crowley raised an eyebrow and gestured vaguely in the air in front of him.

"I do believe it's rude to ignore phone calls, is it not?"

Harry glared at his boss, rapping his knuckles against the table-top and trying to drown out the sound of his ringtone – the one he had set especially for Sam, in a moment of profound sentimentality.

"I thought we were discussing business? Isn't it ruder to answer calls during meetings?"

Crowley smiled indulgently, basking in Harry's discomfort. He didn't care if Harry slipped up and alienated one of the few people he had come to care about; in fact, he was hoping for it. He was always looking for a good laugh, and that would be just hilarious in Crowley's books.

Giving a frustrated sigh Harry slipped his phone out of his pocket. He stared at Crowley for a moment, silently begging the demon to at least be quiet if he had to answer the call. He didn't get a response, but he wasn't expecting one.

Pressing his thumb down on the answer button Harry held his phone up to his ear, a greeting on the tip of his tongue. It died in an instant when Sam spoke first.

"Do you ever feel like the world is out to get you?"

"Only every single day," Harry muttered back, eyeing Crowley with distaste.

Sam obviously wasn't in the most talkative of moods this time around, which made the fact that he'd even picked up at all just that little bit more annoying – it wasn't that he didn't want to talk to Sam, he just could have done without the eavesdropper.

There was a long pause where no-one said anything. Tension raced through his veins, and Harry glared for lack of something more productive to do.

"You don't want to kill me, do you?"

"Sam?" Harry asked, suddenly worried. He'd never asked  _that_  sort of thing before. "What happened? Does this have something to do with," he raised an eyebrow at Crowley, before throwing caution to the wind and going ahead with it anyway, "your visions?" Okay, so maybe he'd been worried and coaxed Ellen into telling him what the deal was with those two. Sam was too worked up to worry about how Harry knew about them.

Crowley leaned back in his chair, feigning indifference, but it wasn't hard to tell that he was listening.

"I think so. Harry... Dad told Dean that if he couldn't save me, he'd have to kill me.  _What's wrong with me?_ "

Harry stood abruptly, knocking his chair over and relocating to the corner of the room furthest away from Crowley for some semblance of privacy. This was such a bad place for this sort of talk.

"You listen to me and listen well Sam. John and I may have been friends, but he was not a good man. In fact, some of his behaviour reminded me a bit too much of my old headmaster – sacrifice one for the lives of many, for the Greater Good.  _There is absolutely nothing wrong with you._  If there's something wrong with anyone, then it's me." Of course, that would only confuse Sam, but one day he would inevitably find out what he meant, and maybe then he'd understand. "Dean could never kill you, you mean too much to him.  _No-one_  is going to kill you, you hear me?"

"Gordon tried to."

That threw Harry through a loop. Someone had actually already been after him? That was ridiculous!

"Gordon, the hunter?"

"Yeah," Sam confirmed flatly, "He's been arrested."

"Good then. I can't believe... He's gone insane. How did he even find out?"

"We don't know. Everything just... it's out of control. I don't know what to do any more."

"Everything will be fine, okay? Just, keep on the look-out for anyone else like Gordon. Promise me, okay? Promise me you'll be careful."

There were things Sam wasn't saying, but by now Harry was more than used to half-stories, and at least none of Sam's were riddled with lies.

"Yeah, yeah okay. I'll try. Promise."

Sam could never hide emotion in his voice from Harry. It pained the wizard to know how worried Sam was about everything, but knew there was nothing he could do about it.

"Feel any better?"

"Not really. But thanks anyway. Talking helps, a bit."

"As long as you know I'm here for you."

"I won't forget."

Sensing the end of their talk, Harry offered up a brief farewell and hung up. Putting his phone back into the front pocket of his jeans he walked back to the table, picked his chair up, settled it in its prior position, and sat down, trying fruitlessly to ignore the almost mocking look on Crowley's face.

"Where were we?" He asked, staring at his hands on the smooth table-top.

"Not going to run after your boy-toy?" Crowley asked lightly, smirking as a faint blush dusted Harry's face even as he clenched his fists in irritation.

"I said,  _where were we?_ "

* * *

Harry wasn't sure what he was doing any more. Crowley was using him for scare tactics – mocking him, probably, seeing as how he didn't really have any say in what happened. These days he was either numb and indifferent, or he was worried.

Indifference he could deal with. He was used to it. In England it had been a safety, and here it was simply a way of living. Over time he had become indifferent to being without his magic; now he was slowly becoming indifferent to having it back. It was a constant – emotions were painful.

The worry was something old and new. He worried for Ellen, and he worried for Jo – his worry for her had expanded exponentially after the hunting incident. Dean, well, Harry didn't really care about the guy, didn't worry about him. The Elder Winchester was none of his concern. Sam though, Merlin, Harry wasn't sure how he'd managed it, but the guy had wormed his way into his distant heart. Even when he wasn't worrying he was worried about Sam Winchester.

Given everything that had happened since first contact, it shouldn't really have been too surprising.

Harry was sitting on his back porch, contemplating the state of his yard, when Sam rang.

His phone played the tune that had become engraved in Harry's brain, and he lazily picked it up, pressing the answer button and holding it to his ear. For a time neither man spoke. Somehow it was a familiar silence. The sort of companionable silence he might have shared with nervous Neville Longbottom once upon a time in their empty dorm. Friendly but intense, so many things could be said with a silence like that. And so many things were.

"You know you can tell me anything," Harry prompted softly, unable and unwilling to explain exactly why Sam should trust him, but hoping all the same. "I may not be a hunter, but hell, I've seen enough shit in my life. Nothing you say to me will ever change my opinion of you."

A dull thud and the sound of rustling filtered across the phone. It sounded as though Sam had knocked something over.

"You don't know that," Sam muttered darkly, and Harry bristled at the unintended insult.

"Yes, Sam, I do," Harry shot back immediately, a biting edge to his words as he tried and failed to completely reign in his indignation. "And some part of you believes me, otherwise you wouldn't have called in the first place." Conjuring a pad of paper and ignoring the pain that streaked through him Harry dug a pen out from his pocket and started a rough sketch of the yard, contemplating what to do with it while he waited for Sam to pull himself together.

"I killed a hunter," Sam breathed, as though expelling a deep secret and he was wary of someone untoward overhearing him.

"No you didn't." He'd already heard most of the story from Bobby, and put two and two together and filled in the blanks that the hunter hadn't wanted to say over the phone. Having connections in the hunting circle always made his life just as much simpler as it did difficult.

"But I  _did_  Harry. It was my knife, my hands. My fault." Sam sounded so anguished, like he was begging Harry to tell him he was wrong, and Harry was happy to oblige him.

"I was possessed once," Harry stated off-handedly, smiling sadly as he heard Sam's sharp intake of breath. Though he'd rather not talk about it, it seemed to be the right decision. "I nearly died and I nearly killed my old headmaster, all in a matter of minutes. It wasn't a long possession by any means, not compared to yours at any rate, but it still haunts me sometimes, even now. Tell me something Sam. If I had succeeded in killing my headmaster while under possession, would you say it was my fault?"

"What? No! Of course not, you couldn't have prevented it, you weren't-"

"In control of my own body, I know. But why do you have so much trouble applying that logic to yourself?"

"I..."

Harry sighed, clenching his fingers around the pen.

"I don't know why you think so lowly of yourself Sam, but I will always believe in you."

"Harry..."

"Until next time."

* * *

It was silly really. It had only taken a handful of phone calls for Harry to start falling in love with Sam Winchester. He didn't realise that was what was happening, having never really experienced love before, but, acknowledged or not, it essentially sealed his fate. Life or death, his existence would always be connected in some way to Sam from that point on – nothing had the power to change that.


	24. All Hell Breaks Loose

**Chapter 24 – All Hell Breaks Loose:**

Though he was still iffy about using his magic – whenever he utilised it for anything other than apparating, it left what could only be described as a horrid after-taste in its wake – in the privacy of his own home he had taken to practising with protective spells. For some reason or another, the 'lighter' the magic he attempted to use, the worse off he was afterwards. Protective spells left him wanting to curl up and die after using them in large quantities. It was something he was trying to work through.

He wasn't a dark person by nature, and he needed to be able to function sufficiently to protect rather than simply destroy. Though destruction was probably what Crowley would be most pleased with, and the whole messed up nature of his magic was liable to be from the demon taint.

It was as Harry was testing some of the more neutral magics that he realised something was wrong. Something outside of himself, for once.

On a whim he had decided to try some locator magic. Ellen was in the area of Nebraska he associated with the Roadhouse; so was Ash. Bobby was in Sioux Falls. But Sam... Sam was nowhere. His magic kept trying, pushing against  _something_ , so he wasn't dead; he was being blocked.

Nothing about that sat right with Harry. When he tried Dean, he could locate him just fine. That was incredibly unnerving.

How the  _hell_  was Sam being blocked? Harry's magic could even tell him if someone was in Hell, because he knew personally and intimately where that was. It was where Crowley was at this very moment. Sam wasn't in Hell, he wasn't dead, he was  _still in America_ ; he was just... lost. Gone from Harry's sight. It wasn't right, it should have been impossible.

Harry would have known if Sam had been in touch with another wand-waver, damn it, and theoretically it would only be other magic that blocked a locator spell.  _Theoretically._  There was still so much about the Supernatural that he didn't understand, hadn't had a chance to investigate with the full weight of his senses and abilities. Who knew what was out there?

Apparently Harry was getting sucked out of his depth once again.

Backing off for a moment, Harry fished his cell out from under the couch – how Crowley had managed to get his number, he'd never know, but boy did he know how to piss Harry off. Turning it on Harry hit speed-dial two.

Out of service.

His worry rocketed up another few notches, frown deepening.

Biting his lip he cleared the screen and hit speed-dial one.

"Roadhouse."

Harry let out a breath he hadn't realised he was holding. This would be so much easier if he still had Dean's number. Never mind.

"Ellen, is Ash there? I need to talk to him."

" _Harry?_ " She shot back, surprised. She had a right to be, after all, Harry had been avoiding her calls for weeks now, ever since the Crowley Incident 2.0 as a matter of fact, if you ignored the Jo Incident 1.0. Despite how much she probably wanted to yell at him though, she knew better than to do it when he actually wanted something. You'd never know the importance of something with Harry; you just had to work on the assumption that it was always pretty up there unless stated otherwise. "I'll go get him."

"Thanks Ellen."

Harry tapped his foot impatiently as he waited, biting his lip in a show of nerves. All he could really do was hope that Ash had something for him.

"Hello?"

"Ash? I need to know if you have any idea where the Winchesters are."

"The Winchesters? Yeah… No can do, sorry man."

"Okay… Call me if you find anything?"

"Sure thing."

Harry sighed, rubbing his forehead to will away the headache he could feel throbbing behind his temples. Stress was never good.

"Thank you Ash, seriously. I'll buy you a beer next time I'm at the Roadhouse, yeah?"

"Sounds good man, I'll start digging."

" _Thanks._ "

And that was the last time Harry would ever hear from Ash, because next thing he knew, Bobby was calling him, telling him there had been an explosion at the Roadhouse, and as far as he knew no-one had survived.

Agonised, torn apart inside, Harry screamed until he was hoarse and could scream no more.

* * *

He didn't move, not even once, until the charms he'd set up to try and pinpoint Sam's location collapsed, confirming the worst possible outcome.

Sam was dead.

* * *

Harry appeared with a slight crack in the centre of the run-down building Dean and Bobby had temporarily relocated to, stressed and about ready to break. The gun shoved in his face didn't even faze him as his eyes searched out and settled on Sam's body, lying lifeless on the bed.

Furious tears burned his eyes and he turned back to Dean, trembling with rage and grief. There was a slightly crazed look in the older man's eyes, and Harry imagined it was probably reflected in his own, were he to look in a mirror. It was too much, all at once.

Why?

"What happened?" Harry demanded, cutting to the chase. He wasn't sure he was steady enough to produce a longer sentence.

"Azazel," was the only response he got; Dean was in a similar predicament.

The man on the bed was someone they both cared about. That, combined with the Roadhouse explosion... It was more than anyone should have to deal with at once.

Dean lowered his gun, defeated, and sank back into the chair he had previously been occupying. He didn't ask questions about Harry's sudden appearance, which was a surprise and a relief, because he wasn't sure he was up to answering them.

Harry knew just by looking at him that Dean was thinking the same thing he was. They needed to get Sam back, and there was only one way to do it. But...

Turning his back on Dean, now certain that he wouldn't be shot, he walked slowly towards Sam's still body. There was no entry or exit wound on his front, so with shaky hands Harry carefully turned him over, paling further at the blood stains on the mattress and the tear in his shirt.

His heart pounded furiously in his chest, and he stoically ignored it when Dean came to loom over his shoulder as he pushed Sam's shirt up, observing the fatal wound. He didn't really care for the details anymore; all he knew was that it  _shouldn't_  have happened.

"What are you doing?" Dean asked warily, voice flat and tired. Harry spared him a glance over his shoulder before kneeling on the floor, resting his hand over the injury and refusing to answer. This was going to hurt, and he needed to concentrate.

Closing his eyes Harry focussed his will, forcing his magic to heal, something he lacked any formal training in. If he was going to try and get Sam back, he couldn't afford for Sam to see anything that would hint at his death. Somehow they'd brush it off as a dream or, or, something.

His hand began glowing as he forced the magic from his core, wincing as his veins burned, muscles screaming in protest to the fiercely light magic. Dean made a shocked noise, but couldn't figure out how to articulate his confusion, for which Harry was grateful.

Slowly the skin knitted itself back together. Harry was shaking and exhausted when he was finally finished, and he collapsed backwards, lying without complaint on the dusty wooden floor.

With the magic show over, Dean seemed to find his voice, as the first thing he did was curse profanely.

"What the  _hell_  was that?" He demanded, poking Harry in the ribs with the barrel of the shot-gun. Blearily Harry forced himself to open his eyes, unfocused emerald staring up in the general direction of Dean's face. That had taken a lot more out of him than he had been expecting.

Rather than answer the hunter's question Harry focussed on getting his breathing under control so he could stand back up. His current position was just a tad too vulnerable for his liking. Reaching out with one hand he weakly batted the gun away.

"You can't just come in here and make some big-ass light show and  _not_  expect me to get angry," Dean informed him darkly, though he obligingly shifted the gun so it pointed at the floor beneath his feet, rather than at Harry's prone form.

Huffing in protest Harry slowly pushed himself up off the ground, hesitantly gripping the bed to aid his balance, letting go the moment he thought he wouldn't fall over without it.

"We're getting him back," he said firmly, allowing no room for protest. It wasn't hard to figure out what he meant, but Dean's face… it was full of disbelief. Purposely ignoring that, Harry lunged forwards, gripping the hunter's shoulders.

He was completely exhausted, and it was an awful idea, but he was doing it anyway. Gathering his weak magic supply he concentrated on the first crossroads he could think of, turning abruptly on the spot and pulling Dean with him. Any respect he had for the Statute of Secrecy had already flown out the window long ago, and the Ministry of fucking Magic could get stuffed as far as he was concerned. This was a goddamned crisis, and he honestly didn't care if he ended up getting arrested on the other end. Sam was not going to stay dead, and that was all that mattered.

They both stumbled when they landed, Dean wheezing something awful, Harry collapsing to his knees. He'd never apparated with a muggle before; he hadn't stopped to think what it might feel like. Personally he felt like death warmed over, but Dean looked like he was going to be sick. An understandable reaction, given Harry could barely stomach apparating himself.

"Fuck!" Dean exclaimed, rather eloquently for someone who had just been transported from one place to another with no warning. There was no amiable atmosphere between the two travellers.

"Help me up," Harry begged softly, hands on his knees as he crouched in the centre of the crossroads. He could have done it from the ground, but the other demons looked down on him enough as it was, he didn't need any new reason for them to sneer. There was a long pause wherein he assumed Dean was going to ignore his request, before a hand entered his vision, gripping his upper arm and hoisting him roughly to his feet.

They stared each other down, Dean's grip tight, Harry's face open and earnest. They both knew what needed to be done, and silently they agreed to put aside whatever grudges they might hold with the other aside until their job was completed.

Squaring his shoulders Harry glanced around, sensing that a demon was there already, hiding in the shadows, outside the range of human sight.

"Come out! I need to discuss something with you."

He noted a flicker, and Dean's eyes shifted from Harry to a spot somewhere in front of the duo, where a woman appeared from the darkness.

"Well well well," she cooed mockingly, looking them up and down and crossing her arms, "If it isn't a Winchester and…  _you._ " Her expression showed exactly what she thought of Harry, but he didn't care for her dismissal, it was to be expected.

"I'm not here for idle chit-chat. You know exactly what we're here for."

"Funnily enough I do. What I want to know is why I should do  _anything_  that would make  _you_  happy."

It was a bit harsh; Harry had never done anything to actually piss any of the demons off.

"It's not like I'd be doing it for free!" Harry snapped back, suddenly glad that Dean hadn't let go of him – he was feeling the urge to punch her in the face, and that wouldn't go down well with anyone. "You could have my soul right here and now if it would get you to bring Sam back."

She sneered down her nose at him, unimpressed, and Dean's grip grew a little tighter as he leaned in.

"You'd really do that for Sam?" He questioned uncertainly, having noted the unexplainable hostility between the two but uncaring for the time being. "Give up your whole life for him, like… Like my dad did for me?"

"There are very few people I am close to these days Dean, and your brother is one of them. He means a hell of a lot to me, and if that's what it takes to get him back, then so be it."

"This is all very touching and all," the crossroads demon called, red eyes disgusted and stance ready to leave at the soonest possible convenience, "but I'm not going to accept your offer. I'd still have to see your stinking face all over the place, so it doesn't benefit me at all."

Growling low in his throat Harry was going to lash out at her, keep speaking, when Dean stepped forward.

"What about me then? I'll make the deal. You can have my soul, regular terms."

She laughed, raucously, clutching one hand to her stomach and bending forward.

"As if your soul is worth anything these days, Dean Winchester. I could take it from you right now and not pay a thing – you have, after all, avoided death once already."

If only it had been a newbie. Harry could have intimidated them into submission and tricked them into making a regular ten-year deal for his own soul, a soul already long destined for Hell, and been done with it by now. It could have been so easy. But easy and Harry Potter ran in different circles, it seemed.

"You gain nothing by refusing us," Harry reminded her, staring her down, wondering what her problem was. "But if you keep refusing, I can always call Him up here and ask for a second opinion." He lifted his hand and pressed two fingers to the side of his neck, putting a slight pressure on the brand which had become the most convenient manner of contacting Crowley.

"He doesn't owe you any favours, wizard boy," she snapped back, posture tense. She could act all high and mighty if she wanted to, but Harry could tell she'd rather not get dragged into anything with the arrogant demon.

"Perhaps not, but that doesn't mean I can't ask him for help."

Her eyes flashed red in anger. In the blink of an eye she had rushed forward, hand around his neck.

"Don't threaten me,  _scum_ ," she snarled, tossing him across the road. Harry groaned pitifully, arms littered in minor scrapes from the gravel, wind knocked out of him. Things weren't exactly going the way he'd planned. If he'd had a plan, that was.

She turned her attention to Dean, and Harry could only watch, unable to muster the strength to intervene, knowing he still had to get them back to Sam in the end, regardless of the outcome. Slowly, with more deliberate motions than before, she lifted a hand and grabbed Dean's chin, examining him.

"Five years," Dean offered, voice firm, posture tense. Even so his eyes betrayed him, filled with desperation. She laughed lightly, scrutinising him.

"One year," she offered in retaliation, releasing his chin and stepping back. "One year and the Hellhounds will come for you. Or are you not  _that_  eager to see your brother again?" Smirking, because she knew he would succumb eventually, she ran a hand over Dean's shoulder, mocking him.

" _Fine._ " The clenched fists showed exactly what Dean thought about her offer, but they weren't about to get a better one. "One year."

"Perfect."

She yanked Dean forward, melding their lips together. A look of disgust crossed his face when he pulled away, but Harry couldn't help thinking that he shouldn't complain. His deal had involved kissing Crowley after all. Dean had gotten off pretty lightly.

"Well I'd like to say that this has been fun, but it hasn't." Without a word more she was gone, leaving the two men in the middle of the road.

" _Wizard boy?!_ " Dean exclaimed once the shock wore off, staring down at Harry in confused anger. "I should just kill you right now, you creepy son of a bitch."

Harry forced a small smile.

"Go ahead. But you'll be the one who has to walk 100 miles back to wherever the hell we were before."

Relenting, because Dean knew if they were truly that far away he'd never find his way back, he once more helped Harry to his feet. Smile turning more apologetic, Harry suggested Dean take a deep breath before he turned on the spot again, depositing them back in the abandoned house in a heap on the dusty floor.

Completely wiped out Harry barely registered Sam's voice before passing out.

* * *

Dean stared at the man – wizard, whatever – who was stretched out on the floor, unconscious. A lot of crazy shit had been happening in the last day or two, but this just about took the cake. It was only Sam that managed to draw his attention away from deciding whether or not he should kill the guy while he was out.

"Dean, what happened?" Sam asked, completely lost. He had thought he was a goner, then he woke up without a scratch.

"You passed out on us," Dean explained after a barely-noticeable pause, smiling widely purely because Sam was standing in front of him, breathing, talking,  _alive._  "But now that you're up you can have something to eat! Bobby already headed out a while ago." He started heading for the table, where the until-now forgotten food sat, but Sam cried out in shock, stopping him in his tracks.

"Harry! How did he- When did he- Is he  _okay?!_ "

"Don't get your knickers in a twist Sammy, he'll be fine." Although Dean had no way of knowing that. Seeing the way his brother fretted over the man made him backtrack a little on his 'kill the wizard' plans. The guy  _had_ been willing to give up his own life in the deal, and you couldn't fake that sort of sincerity. To have that sort of dedication, if he could call it that, which he probably shouldn't; to care for someone who wasn't even family to the extent that you'd rather be dead than them… Well, he was certainly an impressive guy, Dean had to give him some credit. "He showed up after Bobby left, completely frantic. Worried about you I guess. He's just exhausted, he'll come around eventually."

"And you left him on the  _floor?_ " Sam asked incredulously, looking between his brother and his friend.

"What? You were on the bed, there wasn't exactly anywhere else to put him."

"Whatever."

Sam didn't look completely convinced – Harry looked ill, Dean realised, and felt a slight stab of guilt – but he followed Dean nonetheless, food being a fairly decent motivator on this occasion.

"We need to find Jake," Sam decided, halfway through a slice of pizza. "He's with the yellow eyed demon now, and whatever it is they're doing, we need to stop it. Can you call the Roadhouse?"

Dean paused, bottle of coke halfway to his mouth, and sat down, adopting a solemn expression that really didn't belong on his face.

"The Roadhouse went up in flames. Ash is dead, probably Ellen too, plus a bunch of other hunters. We think it's because Ash said he found something, something big. Bobby's looking into it."

"Well then what are we waiting for? Let's go help Bobby! It's only a couple of hours away."

There was no point in trying to argue with Sam, because Dean knew that when he set his mind on something he tended to get stubborn.

They packed up their stuff, trashing most of the uneaten food and unopened drinks, and loaded everything into the Impala. Dean pretended not to notice how much care Sam took in moving Harry into the backseat, promising himself he'd deal with that particular issue once the demon was dead.

* * *

When Harry came to it was to a face-full of Holy Water. He coughed and spluttered, bolting upright and glaring up at Dean, who looked on the whole rather unapologetic. Then he realised they weren't in that odd abandoned house any more.

"What the  _hell_?" Harry protested, ignoring the trembling of his exhausted limbs. "There are nicer ways to wake a person up. If I get pneumonia or something and die I'm definitely coming back to haunt your ass."

A familiar laugh sounded off to his right and Harry spun around so fast he almost got whiplash. Sam. Sam was laughing. Sam was  _alive._  And-

He blinked, looking again, squinting. Was that…?

" _Ellen?!_ "

"Sure is," Ellen said, offering him a smile. She tried to sound cheery, but it was easy to see past it. He knew better than to ask about the Roadhouse. Didn't even want to know. Ash was gone, and he didn't want to dwell on it more than necessary.

"What's happening then?" He asked, because something had to be happening, or surely they wouldn't have allowed Dean to wake him like that when he was so obviously in need of rest.

"Found a 100-mile devil's trap out in Southern Wyoming. We reckon the yellow eyed demon is going to go there, and we need to stop him," Sam explained patiently, nervous and impatient at the same time. "You coming or staying?"

"Coming," Harry confirmed, staring defiantly at Dean as though daring him to say something to rebuke him, anything. Standing up from the couch he swayed on his feet, still exhausted, but gritted his teeth and managed not to wince as his muscles flared with pain. Ellen looked worried, but he gave her a tight smile and shook his head, trying to tell her that there was no way in hell she was convincing him to stay behind. He wouldn't be a liability – he would help or die trying. Crowley would probably find it just as amusing as he seemed to find everything else he did.

The odd group piled into the cars and drove off.

* * *

A cemetery was a cemetery was a cemetery, but this one in particular gave Harry the creeps. There was no particular reason for it, other than perhaps the fact that there was a  _freaking Devil's Gate_ in the centre of the Merlin damned place. He could sense the raw essence of Hell bashing against its confines and he hoped to God he never had to go near that part of Hell. It would drown him and consume him and he would never recover.

The five of them spread out amongst the graves, watching, waiting. Harry wasn't sure what for – it was something no-one had bothered explaining to him on the way there, but he at least knew the gist of what they hoped would go down.

It was getting dark when they arrived, and it was darker still when someone  _else_  arrived. The newest arrival had a gun, and it took him awhile in the darkness to realise that he  _knew_  that gun, had seen it before. It was John's gun. But the figure was most assuredly  _not_  John. John was well and truly dead, and Harry knew it better than most, the man having died basically in his arms.

Following the direction of Dean – although he'd really rather just work on his own instincts – Harry moved in, forming a circle around the man with the rest of the hunters. He was unfamiliar to Harry, but the man obviously knew Sam.

"You can't be here," he protested lowly, eyes wide. "You were dead, I killed you!"

Harry's blood ran cold, both at the admittance and because that was one more person who knew Sam technically shouldn't be alive… and he was going to ruin the shaky charade he and Dean had managed for the last few hours. Sam cocked his head to one side, an odd look on his face, gun pointed at him.

"Yeah? Well next time make sure you finish the job," Sam mocked.

"I did!" The man – Jake? – explained, "I cut clean through your spinal cord man."

Clenching his eyes shut Harry willed Jake to shut up, to stop talking, because everyone was looking at Dean now and it was more than obvious that something untoward had gone down.

His pleas were ignored.

"You can't be alive, you can't be."

They spoke back and forth, banter, and Harry watched, listening. There was something incredibly off about Jake, but he couldn't figure out  _what_.

At least, he couldn't until Ellen was holding her own gun to her head.

_Psychic child._

"Let her go!" He yelled, even as he abandoned the gun he'd been lent in compliance. There was no way he was losing Ellen today, not after he thought he'd already lost her once. The rest followed suit.

For a moment, just a split second, Harry was torn. Help Ellen or stop Jake. Then the man plunged the damn gun into the Devil's Gate, and his decision was made before Sam had the chance to pick his gun up from the ground.

Anger rushed through him, and he threw out his hand, fingers spread wide. Energy collected rapidly at his fingertips, tingling in anticipation. With his lips curled into a snarl he yelled " _Avada Kedavra!_ " and watched with a morbid sense of achievement as green light burst from his hand, hitting Jake dead on. He dropped to the ground, unmoving, and Harry felt more alive than he ever had. The dark magic made his body hum in appreciation and he stumbled, trying to ward off the rush that surged through him. No matter how good it felt, he'd have to avoid doing it again.

All eyes were on him, but he didn't care. He'd feel bad about the death later, when he'd had a chance to sleep and overcome his demonic high. Right now the Gate was opening, and that could only spell bad news no matter what way you looked at it.

"What in the  _Hell_ did you just do?!" Dean yelled, glaring, but he was frightened. He still had no idea what the crossroads demon had really meant when she called him a wizard after all; what proof did he really have that Harry wasn't about to turn around and kill all of them?

"He's dead," Sam confirmed, checking for a pulse.

"You can curse me later Dean," Harry promised, watching the Gate, "But right now we have bigger problems."

Dean grabbed the gun from the lock, watching the door wearily, before the group ran for cover. There was no stopping it before it opened; Harry didn't know the logistics of the things, but it seemed like a pretty decent failsafe on Hell's side – make sure that once it's open it stays open, at least for a moment or two, enough for something to get out.

It burst open with a resounding force, a shockwave of demonic energy erupting from the Gate and spreading out across the cemetery. The energy sent pleasant tingles through Harry's body and he had to force back the urge to vomit.

"We have to close it!" Harry shouted, climbing to his feet and leaving no room for arguments. Ellen and Bobby followed without question, instinctively knowing what the Gate was, but Dean hung back.

He should have known that was when trouble would strike – more trouble than they were already in that is.

Azazel was suddenly there, and nothing was going right, and three people just wasn't a good enough physical effort to force the Gate shut with so much pressure coming from the other side. Momentarily ignoring the fact that Sam had dashed off into a dangerous confrontation again he stepped back, ignoring the protests from Bobby and Ellen.

"Let me try and close it," he muttered, closing his eyes and holding both arms out in front of him, gathering his magic once more. He didn't have a particular spell in mind – didn't know any spells off the top of his head he could use under the circumstances – but it had never stopped him before.

Forcing the magical energy from his body he moulded it around the doors, pushing them closer to each other, exerting more and more force until it was equal to the force coming from Hell, and then more force still. His forehead beaded with sweat and his arms shook, his breathing erratic, but still he kept going. Ellen and Bobby came back to their senses after a moment and lent a hand once more, pushing their weight against a door each. The sound of a gun-shot spurred him on and he screamed as the effort involved tore at him, head pounding as though it were about to split in two. But finally, finally the doors snapped shut once more, the lock spinning back into place.

He collapsed to the ground, shaking, eyes half-lidded, barely breathing. A hand rested on his shoulder, cool and barely there like the ghosts of Hogwarts. Forcing his eyes open he glanced up into the face of John Winchester.

"I'm sorry," he wheezed pathetically.  _I'm sorry I didn't protect Sam. I'm sorry for what I am. I'm sorry for getting my magic back. I'm sorry you had to die. I'm sorry Dean hates me. I'm sorry I lied._

John simply smiled at him, a worn smile, and shifted his hand to Harry's head, as though he were ruffling his hair. At least John wasn't horrendously mad at him. Everyone else likely would be.

Before he could formulate some other response the black spots were filling his vision and John was moving away from him, towards Sam and Dean.

Wondering if it would be the last time he ever saw things with living eyes, he sunk once more into blissful darkness, welcoming the relief from the stress and the pain.

There was no quick fix from this, from any of it, and it would be a long time before Harry returned to consciousness.


	25. The Aftermath

**Chapter 25 – Aftermath:**

The Devil's Gate was going to leave a lasting impression on everyone who had borne witness to its opening. Sam and Dean were no exception, and neither was the overwhelmed wizard.

Singer Salvage became their temporary base of operation while they planned and reflected and individually came to terms with the knowledge that there were several hundred more demons disgracing the surface.

Ellen, as shaken up as she was, sat a silent vigil beside the bed Bobby had reluctantly given up to the unconscious man. They all had questions for Harry; how could they not, after everything that had happened? To kill a man with a word and a flash of light… it was nothing like the usual scope of powers for a witch, and nothing about him was familiar. As far as the hunters knew, as far as Bobby's books could tell them, there was no such thing. Not a single supernatural creature had powers anywhere near what Harry had showed both in the cemetery and beforehand – although Dean had been oddly tight-lipped about the rest of it.

Sam was torn between being pissed at Dean for making the deal, worried about Harry – it had been several days yet he still showed no signs of waking - and annoyed at him for keeping something as massive as strange powers from him, especially with everything Sam had trusted him with. In the end he wandered aimlessly around the place, constantly entrenched in a dark mood that made everyone think twice before talking to him.

Dean was simmering in an angry silence of his own, but because he was confused. He had watched the interaction between Harry and John. It was obvious to him that his father had already known something of Harry's abnormality, because he hadn't been shocked in the slightest, but he had treated him like a friend, like a…  _son_. John had never been that affectionate with him and Sam, and seeing him affectionately ruffling Harry's hair like that had been a punch to the gut. What had Harry done since he met John that made him so high up in his books?

It pissed him off.

* * *

Crowley sat, invisible to the vastly unimpressive human eye, in Bobby's spare room, watching his unconscious servant and contemplating.

When he first met the wizard, roughly eight years ago, it had sparked his curiosity. To think that there truly was a sort of magic possessed by the humans that wasn't of demonic origins. Earth-born magic users were a long-forgotten myth in Hell. It must have come, as Harry had told him, from the Wizards' refusal to believe in the existence of demons.

Harry's deal had been a strange one. There had been no doubt in Crowley's mind that he wanted a chance to figure out the intricacies of human magic, but he had been wary of the fact that he knew nothing about it. There had been no indicators he could use to determine whether Harry's magic would travel with his soul or remain in his body upon his death, and he had had no desire to find out only to be proved wrong.

So he may have told Harry that he felt he might be important, but truly he was afraid of losing the source of magic. Taking his soul was too risky, so he took the magic straight from the source instead.

Even after all this time, he  _still_  had no idea as to what the connection was between the magic and the human existence. Was it possible that the magic might have disappeared if Harry had been to die while Crowley was in possession of it? He hadn't been keen to find out. It wasn't as though the magic had been of much use to him, in the end. That's why he'd given it back.

The 'new' deal was a bit of a bluff, if Crowley were to be honest – which he almost never was. Making a deal with a demon was generally a one-way ticket to Hell,  _because_  the price was their soul. He hadn't made Harry promise his soul, so there was no way to guarantee where he would end up once everything was said and done. Crowley didn't want to put a deadline on Harry's life, because the human interested him. Instead, because he had a way with words, he twisted their deal into something that would benefit him without requiring the wizard's death.

Harry was a rather pathetic servant though – he had too many morals, although Crowley could break through some of his lesser ones by vocal threat. What was the point of it all? A lingering experiment?

The results of all of his meddling with Harry's magical core were certainly interesting.

Crowley never would have imagined it would wind up with the guy in a practical coma from some sort of magical interference or exhaustion. Interesting though it may have been, it wouldn't do him any good if Harry never woke up again.

Silently standing from the chair he had inhabited for the last hour, Crowley smoothed out the wrinkles in his suit and walked over to the edge of the bed. Reaching out with one hand he placed it gently on Harry's forehead, careful not to do anything that would alert the half-awake woman across the room to his presence. He scoured Harry's body for demonic energy, frowning slightly. There was something there, but it had been warped, and he couldn't pinpoint it or decipher its source.

There was nothing he could do about it.

Even so, if he was still out of commission in a few weeks it might be for the best if he simply cut him loose.

* * *

Somehow or another, past the fog of unconsciousness, Harry was dreaming.

Or at least, he thought he was dreaming. There were similarities to lucid dreaming, he supposed, but at the same time it reminded him more of when he used Dumbledore's pensieve all those years ago.

Harry found himself sitting atop a worn-out shell of a car in Bobby's yard, overlooking the Impala and the Winchester brothers. Dean was doing maintenance under the hood while Sam stood sulking, leaning against the side of another car.

"Look," Sam started, pointed, bitter and desperate. It sounded like an argument they must have had before. What Harry didn't know was why he was dreaming about it. "I know you're mad Dean, I get it. Don't you think I'm angry too? But it's been a week. Shouldn't we at least take him to a hospital or  _something?!_  You'll never get any answers if he never wakes up, and I…" He trailed off, suddenly choked up with emotion, and Harry felt his heart clench. For a dream it was sort of… morbid.

And then he blinked and Crowley was at the edge of the car-yard, watching them.

He was only there for a moment before disappearing again, and it seemed easier to pretend it had never happened.

Stretching his legs out in front of him Harry lifted a hand to his chest, remembering the feelings that had overwhelmed his body. A part of him was beginning to regret his rash actions – to think, the first time he'd ever used the killing curse and it was on a muggle – but at the same time he had seen the look in Sam's eyes. If it prevented Sam from killing in cold blood then maybe it wasn't so bad being a murderer. He could deal with it. Killing Voldemort hadn't left him feeling bad about himself, and neither would killing Jake.

The euphoria that came from the spell though… it scared him. True, he had heard that dark magic was addictive, but if it was  _that_  strong a reaction every single time then how on earth would dark wizards be able to function? There was no way it was natural. Apparently there was something inherently wrong with him.

It would be just his luck wouldn't it? To suddenly get his magic back only to find out he's completely fucked up.

Shaking his head he leaned back against the car, folding his arms behind his head and staring up at the sky. For a dream it sure was rather calm. He was used to things being more hectic.

As he continued staring at the overcast sky his eyes grew heavy, and he let them close, succumbing to darkness again.

* * *

"Do you think he's ever going to wake up?" Sam asked softly, leaning against the doorframe as he watched Harry's chest rise and fall, the only indicator that his friend was even still alive. Ellen stood, moving to stand next to him, leaning against the wall with her arms folded across her chest.

"He'll wake up," she assured, sounding far too sure of herself, a confidence born from fear of the alternative. "And when he does I'll be having words with him. I've lost far too many people recently for him to be going about giving me scares like this."

It impressed Sam that she could completely ignore the elephant in the room to focus on his health. He wished he could do the same. First and foremost Harry was his friend, but he was also an unknown entity. Of course, there was always John's reaction to ponder. Dean was suitably pissed off about that, but setting aside anger for a moment Sam could admit that he was curious about it all. He had known, in an abstract way, that Harry and his father were friends, of a sort, but knowing they were acquainted and  _seeing_  it when they were in hospital after the crash…

It had been a shock. The graveyard had been more of a shock, but for different reasons. John had seen what Harry did, at least some of it, and all he'd done was pat him on the head. It was mind-blowing.

If  _John Winchester_  of all people could be so calm about it all, then Harry must have done something to prove himself, and then surely he couldn't be all that bad.

Sam desperately hoped they could resolve everything positively. Dean had less than a year left –  _goddamn him, he shouldn't have made the deal, what was he supposed to do without him?_  – and he  _needed_  Harry to wake up; he knew he'd need someone to lean on if they couldn't save Dean, and honestly Harry was his best friend. Probably his only friend, which was a depressing thought.

Feeling the darkness threatening to drown him again in depression Sam shook himself, leaning forward to pat Harry's ankle through the sheets before leaving the room.

* * *

Bobby was buried in books in the front room, still trying to find some mention of anything even close to the powers Harry had displayed, even a week after starting the search. A part of him new that the search was pointless, but at the same time he needed something to occupy himself with until the damn kid woke up.

Occasionally Dean kept him company – if you could call sitting on the couch and drinking copious amounts of beer keeping a person company – but for the most part it was just him and his books.

Thinking about it, Bobby didn't really know jack-shit about Harry other than what he'd heard from Ellen and Sam. They'd spoken on the phone all of one time, many years ago, and that had been purely research.

Regardless, going purely off of what he had seen of Harry in action, there was nothing about him that screamed 'unstable' or 'potentially dangerous'. Yes, those crazy powers of his, if turned against them, would be deadly – as proven by Jake – but at the time being, at least, it didn't  _appear_  as though he would turn against them. Rational thought was obviously a strong point of his, if he'd survived as long as he had living with hunters. Ellen hadn't even  _known_  he had any powers, which said something either for his subtlety or for how much he used them. Likely it was the latter, because he seemed almost surprised at times as to how his powers reacted to him.

Swearing loudly Bobby downed the last of his own beer and slammed the book shut.

There was no point thinking it over now – the kid deserved some good opinions of him if he never woke up.

* * *

Ten days.

Harry was unconscious in a coma-like state for ten days following the incident.

When he did finally wake, it was slowly. His body thrummed with a dull ache, protesting every twitch of movement. Lying unmoving for such a long period of time wasn't something you could just shake off like pins and needles. His hearing and vision was fuzzy for several minutes as his body adjusted to actually having to use those senses once again.

When he did come back to himself it was to see all four people standing around his bed, various expressions littering their faces. They ranged from relieved to bitter – Dean embodied that last one, which was unsurprising. He shifted, trying to signify something – what, he wasn't sure – but didn't even bother trying to speak. After all the times he'd been injured at school he knew better than to push himself so soon after waking.

Still, he wanted to at least sit up. He felt ridiculously vulnerable lying prone in the bed with them all standing over him. Somehow or another his discomfort must have made itself apparent, because Sam said on the edge of the bed, next to the pillow, and carefully helped him sit. It wasn't fun, and he knew he was too weak to remain upright without support, no matter how embarrassing it was.

Ellen passed Sam a glass with a straw and, with the hand that wasn't keeping Harry upright he held it in front of the weak wizard's face. Mortifying as it was – his cheeks burned red and he had to resist the urge to hang his head – he accepted the drink, taking careful swallows of the cool liquid. Dean was glaring something fierce at him, but he ignored it in favour of concentrating on the hand on his back. It was comforting, as much as he hated to admit it.

Having finished half of the water he shakily pushed the glass away and cleared his throat gently, wincing at the action but unwilling to back down.

"Okay then," Harry whispered into the still silence of the room, not feeling up to speaking any louder, "What's my verdict?" He wasn't stupid – they were hunters, and he wasn't a normal human. They had had god knows how long to get over the shock from that night, and plenty of time to figure out what to do with him.

"Listen," Sam said from off to the side as he put the glass down on the bedside table. "Dean told me – rather reluctantly mind you – about what happened while I was… dead. Dude, you were willing to give up your whole life then and there for me without a second thought. You can't be that selfless and be evil at the same time."

Harry frowned, eyebrows furrowed.

"I wouldn't call that selfless," he muttered, leaning into Sam against his will. "It was a highly selfish logical thought process. I figured you would be far happier living however long with Dean about and never seeing or hearing from me again than you would have been if Dean died for you to live. Obviously my objective failed." He added bitterly, curling his fingers weakly in the sheets. Looking up, eyes slightly blurry, he stared straight at Dean, expectant. If anyone was going to be straight with him it would be quick-to-anger Dean.

"I don't like you," Dean admitted darkly, straight to the point. "But we've had ten days to think about things. You're too human for me to kill in good conscience, but just not quite human enough. I don't trust you as far as I can throw you, but…"

"That's a better reception than I expected," Harry said, pointedly ignoring the mention of how long he'd been unconscious for, pushing it aside to think about later, preferably when he was alone.

"We did tests while you were out," Bobby added gruffly, staring at him from under his cap. "Holy water, blood, the whole shebang. You ain't no demon at any rate. I don't know what you are, but it's nothing I know."

The whole atmosphere was tense. It was hard to tell whether they were waiting for a confession or a denial. They would be getting neither from Harry.

Ignoring the protests of his limbs Harry shifted –  _you've been in worse pain than this, get over yourself_  – reaching past Sam and retrieving the glass once more. Talking hurt, but he wasn't finished just yet.

"I understand if you want me to leave," he continued softly, taking another sip of water. "If you want, I'll even leave the country, as a show of good will. I'll go somewhere smaller – maybe New Zealand or somewhere in Polynesia, that'd be a nice change of pace…" Slowly he trailed off, listing all the places he could think of that he could move to – basically anywhere that wasn't in Europe.

His four observers exchanged bewildered looks, taken by surprise at his docile compliance and at the implication that he would so readily up and move his entire life.

"And Bobby, you can have free reign over all my books. I'll leave you my spare key…"

Sam smacked him up the back of the head, forcibly halting his mindless babble. He groaned, but otherwise fell silent.

"Dude, what the hell? No one said anything about leaving."

"I killed him," Harry reminded them blankly, refusing to think about what choice words Crowley would likely have for him if he truly did leave the country.

"Believe it or not," Dean broke in awkwardly, "That's the part I care least about. You stopped Sam from becoming a mindless murderer. I respect that." Hearing his own thoughts echoed in  _Dean_  of all people was actually more of a shock than the fact that they didn't want to kill him (he really needed to deal with his trust issues).

"What happens now then?" Harry asked quietly, looking down at his hands.

"Observation," Ellen explained somewhat reluctantly. "Like Dean said, they don't trust you." The silent 'but I do' hung in the air for a moment before she moved on. "But regardless, you're one of us, and I for one believe that means giving the benefit of the doubt. I've known you for years kiddo – you never once did anything that could be considered harmful when you were living at the Roadhouse with us, and Jo would never forgive me if I let anything happen to you."

Bewildered by it all, Harry looked up again. He'd known Ellen cared for him to some degree, but he hadn't thought it was so fierce.

"House arrest then?"

"Something like that."

Nodding in acceptance Harry slumped against Sam, suddenly feeling incredibly drained. He'd worked himself up a bit during the talk, magic whirling beneath the surface to strengthen him, but now he was exhausted again.

"I'll bring you some food when you wake up again," Sam muttered softly, having correctly interpreted his body language. He helped Harry lie down again before backing off, going to stand by Dean in the doorway.

For a moment Harry watched them watch him, before the fatigue overwhelmed him and his eyes closed, dragging him under, this time for a normal sleep.

At least he hadn't been banished from the country.

 


	26. The Approaching Storm

**Chapter 26 – The Approaching Storm:**

Recovery was a slow process, something which Harry had always  _known_ , but never really  _processed._  Having to limp the measly distance from the room to the bathroom while leaning heavily against the walls of the house was perhaps the most embarrassing thing he'd experienced in a long time. It was actually a bit of a relief that he had been expressly forbidden from going anywhere else, because he likely would have made a fool of himself in the process.

He could vividly imagine himself falling down the stairs.

Having been some sort of warrior for the majority of his life, even if he hadn't been fighting, it was rather ingrained in his bones to hate feeling weak. Having to rely on other people was a liability, especially for important things like food and water, and yet here he was, limping about and shaking with exhaustion and lying in bed when he exhausted his pitifully limited energy by pacing the room. Intellectually he knew Sam would never withhold food from him, but instinctively, stemming from a history if living with people who didn't particularly trust or care for him, he knew that it was a simple yet powerful act, keeping sustenance from those in need.

It pained him rather greatly to realise that he was subconsciously doubting Sam's kindness, but there was nothing he could do save ignore the little voice that cursed and muttered darkly in the back of his mind.

One thing Harry was a bit perturbed about was the sudden about-face behaviour of his watchers. While they'd been fine with interrogating him the moment he regained consciousness, Dean and Bobby had all of a sudden decided it was a bad idea to push him while he was recovering, which Harry thought was an extremely stupid idea, even though he appreciated the extra time it allowed him to figure out what he should tell them – for he wasn't fool enough to believe that they wouldn't still be waiting for an explanation of sorts.

The only reason he was even submitting to the care forced upon him was so he could get himself together mentally. Exhaustion was nothing new, and with regular food and actual sleep his magic was replenishing itself (never to be used again, he'd like to swear, although he knew he'd never stick to it) and sustaining his body past regular limits. Harry was more conscious than any of them realised of how much time he was wasting, how much of the limited time Dean had left topside that he was stealing away from Sam. The faster he healed the faster Sam could stop playing nurse and start spending more time with his brother.

Guilt was one of the things Harry had never figured out how to brush off, and every second they wasted because of him weighed heavily on his conscience.

* * *

One week after waking up Harry was fed up with it all. 49 weeks might sound like a lot, but in hindsight it was barely even a drop in the flow of time that made up an entire life. 49 short weeks were all Dean had left to him.

Trailing his hand along the wall just in case, Harry stubbornly made his way down the stairs and into Bobby's front room, just barely managing to sit rather than collapse onto the couch which, thankfully, wasn't covered in books like just about every other surface in the house seemed to be. No matter how understandable the cause, it was starting to get ridiculous.

Bobby stared at him over the top of a glass of scotch, curious but not willing to say anything. They were used to Harry obediently staying upstairs by now, and his blatant disregard of the 'rule' today, though intriguing, wasn't something he could be bothered questioning. Everyone involved in the hunting game had a serious stubborn streak in them, and it was well known by now that Harry was no exception.

The silence was appreciated. Harry didn't want to expend extra energy that he couldn't afford by acting before everyone was there. He had a hell of a lot of explaining to do, and he didn't fancy doing it twice.

Humming a Weird Sisters song he could only vaguely remember under his breath he moved around the cushions on the couch, piling them up around him so he was leaning against a bunch of them without showing the vulnerability of actually lying down on the couch. He couldn't resist pulling the blanket down over his legs to hide the faint tremors though – he didn't fancy explaining the whole 'phantom pains from an old curse' thing. Then the only thing left to do was wait.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later Harry had hummed every wizarding song he could remember and Bobby had poured himself a new glass of hard liquor, apparently sensing that whenever Harry was ready to do what he'd come downstairs for it was going to get real serious, real quick. It was also about then that Sam came down the stairs.

"Hey, Bobby," he called as he walked, "Have you seen Harry any…where…" Sam trailed off as he turned into the front room, staring in disbelief at Harry sitting curled up on the couch. Cracking a smile Harry waved weakly in his direction. "Harry! What are you doing down here? You're supposed to be resting, getting your strength back!"

Silence. Harry rolled his eyes.

"There are more important things to be doing that lying in bed. Could you go get Dean and Ellen? I think it's about time I did some proper explaining."

For a moment Sam didn't move. He stayed in the doorway, watching Harry, scrutinising him. It was comforting to know he was worried, but it wasn't helping. Starting to get impatient Harry made shooing motions at him, and the taller man succumbed, heading out into the car yard.

"Should I be worried?" Bobby asked once Sam was gone. The underlying question was obvious. Is this explanation going to mean we have to kill you? And honestly, Harry couldn't answer that question. He couldn't possibly know what they would think of him after all was said and done. If anyone needed to feel worried it was him, not Bobby.

The old hunter must have sensed his inner turmoil and didn't ask again, despite the lack of answer.

Sam returned with the other two in tow, Dean looking decidedly pissed - Harry had stopped wonder why since it happened quite often when he was around – and Ellen appearing a tad worried – unsurprising, she was about to find out what exactly she had practically adopted as a son. They situated themselves around the room, Sam taking the other half of the couch, Dean leaning up against the doorframe, arms folded across his chest, and Ellen taking a seat at the table by Bobby.

"I've been thinking about this all week," Harry started when he had their attention. "Whether to tell you, how much to tell you, what not to tell you, what the consequences might be… And I decided 'what the hell', if shit goes down it goes down, and there's nothing I can do about it. So first thing's first. I have strange powers. Technically speaking, it's called magic."

Harry was pointedly staring at a section of wall so he wouldn't have to see Dean's expression as he talked, because he knew it wouldn't be pleasant.

"I've only had this convoluted sort of wandless magic for about six months or so. When I was seventeen I gave up the magic I had been born with in exchange for the help I received in killing someone who had been terrorising the British Magical Community for the last half century or so. I was never expecting to get it back. After I lost my magic I realised that I couldn't stay in England, both because I feared that somehow the Ministry would get a hold of me and try to drag me back to the magical community, and because there were too many memories in that place for me to deal with. That's when I decided to come to America.

After aimlessly roadtripping for a time, unable to find anywhere I felt I could 'settle down', I ran into a hunter by the name of Rufus. One of my friends back home used to say that I had a 'saving people thing', and after some demon related incidents back home I became a little bit obsessed with discovering the muggle supernatural world. Muggle being non-magical, by the way. I'd heard some strange stuff, and ran in Rufus while he was exterminating a nest of vampires. We talked a little, and he told me about the Roadhouse, which I then made it my goal to find.

When I did eventually stumble across the Roadhouse, quite by accident as I'm sure Ellen remembers, I just never really left. I was more of a book person than a fighter, which surprised me considering I'd never really liked school, but it was comforting all the same. I realised I could help people without going out and killing and risking my life, so I devoted most of my time to researching as much as I could, and helping out the hunters that came to me for advice. When Ash came along I eventually decided that the Roadhouse was in capable hands, regardless of his eccentricities, and went out on my own. I found a place in Jackson and for the most part stayed there from then on out.

Every now and again I'd delve into hunting, if it was something small or just nearby, but for the most part I kept to myself. When Sam called on behalf of John from the hospital I was of half a mind not to go. As Dean suspected I was well aware of what he intended to do with the things he wanted me to bring him. Having seen the best and worst of humanity under many different guises it wasn't hard to figure out. I told him a story, before we went to summon the demon, and he promised we could kick some demon ass when I eventually joined him downstairs. You can't imagine how relieved I am that that won't happen now, that he managed to escape. Your father was an incredibly sneaky man.

My magic, as it were, was forcibly given back. You could say the contract was rescinded. I had never wanted it back, and yet here I am, all the worse off for it."

Harry trailed off, unsure of what else to say and where else to go. The silence that followed was heavy, and he was unwilling to shift his gaze to see their expressions. Instead he fisted his hands in the blanket over his legs and stared down at his lap, counting the silence in his head.

"Are you saying you were born with magic, sort of like Merlin or something?"

"So you made a deal with a demon huh? No wonder you seemed so comfortable taunting the crossroads demon. How are you even still alive?"

Predictably enough, Sam picked up on the new and interesting while Dean picked up on the darker part of his story.

"Yes, I was born with magic, although I didn't know about it until I turned eleven." Harry sighed, knowing he would have to go into more detail in a moment and wondering what the deal was with the American Ministry – Crowley had had numerous problems with them, but they hadn't confronted him once… yet. "As for the demon… I was desperate. As were you, and as was John."

"Don't you bring my dad into this!" Dean snapped, lashing out and punching the wall with his fist, expression twisted and furious when Harry reflexively jerked up at the sound. "So desperation makes it okay does it? You were just a kid, huh? Demons are a no-go zone,  _Peverell,_  in case you'd forgotten. Or are things different over in merry old England? Do you fucking Brits have a grand old time prancing around and making merry with the denizens of Hell, do you?"

Fire burned in his veins – anger now, completely his own – and he clenched his teeth, fingernails biting into his palms deep enough to draw blood. Dean was such a fucking  _hypocrite!_  So it was okay if the Winchesters ran around making deals as long as no one else did? Bullshit.

Without even realising he'd moved Harry found himself face to face with the hunter, hands curled into his shirt, lifting him off the ground and slamming him into the wall with a strength he shouldn't have been able to muster (thank god they were the same height or it might have been a much harder struggle). He summoned up the darkest glare he could muster and stared Dean down, breathing heavily.

"Don't you make a fucking mockery of my life Winchester. You know absolutely  _nothing_  and you have  _no right_ , none at all, to be making snap judgements about my behaviour when you've done  _exactly the same goddamn thing!_  I did what I had to do, just like you did what you felt you had to do, and John did what he felt he had to do."

Struggling to calm himself down Harry loosened his grip, allowing Dean's feet to rest flat on the ground once more, but he didn't let go. He ignored Sam's protests and Bobby telling him to let them sort it out themselves. The words flowed over him but he wasn't processing. He was too pissed to understand anything outside of himself and Dean.

"I was in the middle of a  _war_ , one between the light and the dark of Magical Britain, a war for a bunch of wizards who expected a  _sixteen year old boy_  to save them all. No one ever asked me if I wanted to be their saviour, they didn't ask me if I wanted to be a murderer. They threw me into the war and treated me like a child and at the end of the day they left it all down to me. There was nowhere else to turn to. The first demon I met was on the battlefield – they were possessing one of my friends, a wizard who had mostly abandoned the wizarding world and had been living peacefully in muggle Britain, near my Aunt and Uncle's home in Surrey.

So yeah, maybe I sought the second demon out on my own, but I was out of options. The leader of the Dark Wizards, Voldemort – which is a stupid fake name he came up with to sound intimidating – was keeping himself alive through, you guessed it, extremely dark magic. He had  _split his soul_ , and no one would tell me how to kill him. It was always 'you're too young Harry', and 'what about your childhood Harry?' They acted like they didn't care about ending the war, and yet the wider public hated on me all the time because I wasn't acting well enough as their prophesied saviour. I needed help, and the only way I could get it was from a demon.

I was willing to give my life to end the war, just like I was willing to give my life for Sam. Considering the circumstances I'd almost rather he'd just taken my life like a normal demon, instead he had to be a curious bastard and take my magic instead. My deal would be up in a year, maybe less by now, and then I wouldn't have to worry about any of this crap.

So yeah, Dean, forgive me if I think you're a hypocritical brat who can't stand when other people do the things you've stooped to. I couldn't care less if you hate me for saving a country, because your opinion means jack shit right now. I could kill you right here and now, you know, and you'd never be able to stop it. That's the power of a wizard. We don't need silly hex bags and rituals. A few words and a flick of a wand – or my hand as the situation may be – and you're dead. Think about that. Think on it and remember to be glad that I'm such a nice person. Be glad that I despise killing. Be thankful that I have no wish to fall into another freaky coma from performing dark magic. I know respect isn't in your vocabulary, but perhaps you could try being a little less of a douchebag to people more powerful than yourself."

Harry didn't yell. Very rarely did he yell. Instead it was the intensity of his voice that impressed his anger, the emotions roiling behind them and the control with which he reigned in his impulses. He let Dean go and hurriedly backed off before he lost that control, before he gave in to the urges to beat Dean to a pulp, to at least punch him in the face. His expression was stormy, murderous, and Dean was silent and pale, leaning heavily against the wall in shock.

No one moved and there was no noise.

Then, without warning, a loud crack sounded in the car yard, just outside the house.

Harry flinched at the sound, but his frown only deepened, showing his utmost displeasure at the turn events were taking. He couldn't see the others from his position by the window, but he knew they were all watching the door, just like he was. For him it was in anticipation, for them it was probably fear, a fear of the unknown.

The door swung open with a bang to reveal two men dressed in what Harry easily recognised as battle robes – though they were much less gaudy than the uniform of the British Aurors and looked to be better designed as well. Garbed as they were in head to toe in black he was briefly reminded of Severus Snape, and had to wonder who would be more offended by the comparison.

They came in with their wands out in front of them, both pointing straight at him. Obviously subtlety wasn't deemed necessary when dealing with people who broke the Statute of Secrecy, because lo and behold the secret was already out. It certainly took them long enough, considering all the magic he'd performed back at the cemetery.

The click of a shotgun sounded behind him, and it was oddly heart-warming to know that Bobby would rather shoot the intruders before dealing with his emotional outburst.

"Good afternoon gentlemen," Harry greeted the two American Aurors sarcastically, glaring unrepentantly at them. "To what do I owe the unexpected visit? I was under the assumption that you didn't care about what they knew, otherwise you would have been arresting me three weeks ago."

They exchanged looks, obviously confused, and Harry tilted his head in thought. Either they hadn't picked up on it, someone was keeping it hushed up, or they cared more about verbal exposure in America than they did about circumstantial. In the Supernatural hub if the world Harry supposed it was easy to pass off acts of magic as other things – witchcraft, demonic energy, poltergeist.

"You broke the Statute of Secrecy," the first Auror informed him stoically, all business.

"You will be charged with a hefty fine and your companions will be obliviated," the second Auror continued, shifting his wand to point at Dean, who actually flinched away from it involuntarily. It would have been funny under different circumstances.

Harry laughed darkly, and with a wave of his hand both their wands were in his possession. It left him feeling winded, but he acted like he was fine. Never show weakness in front of authority figures or the enemy, and at the moment the Aurors were both.

"Like hell you are," he laughed, waving their wands around in the air. "They needed to know, and if you obliviate them I'll keep on telling them over and over again until you get it through your thick ministry skulls that I don't care about your stupid Statute. You're Americans, I'm sure you know about Hunters. Well these are Hunters, and I said they needed to know."

"And what the hell gives you the right to break the law as you please?" The second Auror shouted, cheeks flushed with rage, amber eyes smouldering with contempt.

Harry slashed through the air in front of him with his free hand, rings glinting in the light, in a frustrated gesture.

"Because my name is Harry James Potter-Black and you would do well to fear me."

The lights flickered, flaring brightly although there was no electricity running through them, as Harry's uncontrollable magic rolled off of him in waves. He threw the wands to the ground at their feet and watched in satisfaction as the Aurors hastily reclaimed them and fled. His balance wavered, but he remained steadfast, staring at the ground.

Belatedly, he realised he shouldn't have snapped at the Aurors. They were going to report it to their Head of Department, who would no doubt report his presence in the country to the Ministry's leader. All he could do now was hope they didn't feel the urge to contact the British Ministry about it, or he'd be hunted down and dragged back across the pond to be belittled and worshipped.

"I don't have time for this," he muttered, only realising quite how much they meant once the words were out in the open. "None of us have time for this," he repeated, louder this time. "We have to go. I need to return to my house, I have numerous texts on just about everything imaginable and we will need all the time we can get to go through it all."

"Now look here boy," Bobby spoke up gruffly, setting the shotgun down on the table, although it still pointed at Harry. "No one's going anywhere until you answer a few questions."

Shoulders slumped in despair Harry sighed. "I'm on your side Bobby, and right now that's all you need to know. I'm on your side and I'll fight against whatever's coming, whether it be my kind or the regular shit that goes down around the States." His legs shook and he slumped against the wall, sliding to the ground with a dull thump. "There's no way I can get home by myself. Please. Even if it's just to drive me there and whoever does it comes straight back here."

"I don't know what obliviation is," Dean said quietly from across the room, "but it sounded like they were going to wipe our memories." Harry nodded tiredly in agreement. "I rather like my memories. And your research, you'll be looking into demon deals?"

"In part. I'm also hoping to find some way to purify the demonic taint that seems to have latched itself to my magic." Harry glanced over at Sam as he said it, hoping he wasn't making a mistake in mentioning it.

"Then we'll take you. And we'll help."

Harry and Dean stared at one another, sharing a silent conversation. They both knew what Dean was risking by helping with the research, but he had wards to prevent demons – other than Crowley – from entering his house in any way shape or form, and it should be safe enough there. The two only had one thing in common, their desire to help and protect Sam. It would have to be enough for a truce, for now.

* * *

Sam was overwhelmed by Harry's extensive library. Even Dean was grudgingly impressed. It was like some sort of bookworm heaven – although Harry disliked thinking of himself as such – and it became even more so when he dug out his trunk of magical texts for them to flick through.

The idea was that Sam and Dean would look for stuff about demon deals while Harry did his own research on purification. It was almost shocking how pessimistic he was about the whole endeavour – he didn't really expect to find anything. It would be too convenient if there was some clear cut solution. To either of their problems. But it was a starting point.

What surprised him the most was how much effort Dean put into reading through thick tomes about dry subjects. From what he'd gathered about the man research was pretty much the last thing he liked spending his time doing. It was a nice change though. They had exchanged very few words since the incident at Bobby's, and the silence was more welcomed than unnerving. It allowed Harry to concentrate on his own problems.

As he'd predicted, his books were basically useless in terms of purification. No one had ever done any research into the previous generations of psychic children, and Harry's own situation was highly unprecedented, considering he must have been the first wizard ever to give his magic to a demon only to get it back. Wizards were loath to do things without reason, which was probably why the British Magical Community was so stagnated in the middle ages. It was also why there were so few innovations. Potions Masters were the bulk of the 'creative' industry in the magical world, and they were few and far between. Wizards were lazy. It had never occurred to him until he needed something that they didn't have. Change terrified them – that was what caused the Pureblood tyranny, what split the magical people into groups – and so they stagnated. Disgusting.

With no information forthcoming, Harry was left with very few options.

Writing out a carefully worded letter Harry vaguely explained the circumstances and the desired outcome of a new potion. It was an offer, a request, to Potions Masters around the world, to take up the challenge of creating a potion that would fix his 'problem'. They would of course be rewarded for it, if they succeeded. He didn't sign the letters with his name, instead sealing the missives with hot wax and pressing his family ring into it, decorating the seals with the Potter family crest.

The brothers wondered what he was doing, but never asked. He was thankful for that. As it stood he was putting an awful lot at stake by revealing himself even partially – it was well-known that he was the only Potter left – to a bunch of strangers, and he didn't wish to have to think on his decision more than necessary.

Harry had no idea how long it would take for the recipients to respond to his letters, or even if any of them would take up the challenge. He could only cross his fingers and wait.

In the meantime there was another problem to deal with.

The tricky terms of crossroads deals.

It was going to be a long year.


	27. The Whims of Dean Winchester

**Chapter 27 – The Whims of Dean Winchester:**

"I give up. It's not like we're going to find anything anyway."

Harry startled awake as Dean slammed his book shut on the table. He had been dozing on the couch, an older tome lying open on his chest, the pages nicked and dog-eared from previous searches. His blurry gaze found Dean, leaning his chair back on two legs and drinking a care as though he hadn't a care in the world. It was easy enough then to imagine the disapproving look that would no doubt adorn Sam's face – he recalled Dean referring to it as Sam's 'bitch-face'. An apt description, he supposed, depending on what definition of bitch you applied to it.

Hanging his arm off the side of the couch Harry felt around for his glasses, nimble fingers latching onto them and deftly pushing them into place, clearing up his vision. The beer bottle was much fuller than he had anticipated; Dean must have grabbed a new one while he slept. Closing the book on his chest, not bothering to mark his place – it was a bust anyway, no point in continuing down a dead end – Harry slowly sat up, giving the hunter his full attention.

"That's optimistic," he grunted sleepily, running a hand through his mess of hair. Sam turned a lesser version of his bitch face on him and Harry shrugged helplessly, yawning.

"Well what do you expect Dean?" Sam snarked, over-tired and over-worked. "Did you think the answer would magically appear when you snapped your fingers?"

Immediately, as was wont to happen whenever the word magic popped up these days, Dean's eyes flickered to Harry, questioning. Too tired to care for his idiocy and games Harry merely rolled his eyes and mouthed 'fuck off', with a bonus violent gesture, while Sam's back was still turned.

It was easier on both parties to 'get along' when they gave each other permission to tease the crap out of them, or whatever they so chose. Sam was disapproving, as he was of a lot of things these days, but he couldn't deny that at least they weren't trying to kill each other, and that that was a very good thing.

Sam bristled with anger at the silent exchange. "I mean it Dean! Can't you take this seriously for two minutes?!"

Harry swung his legs off the couch, silently commanding Dean to remain silent. Shouting wouldn't fix anything at this point, and Dean would be the first to admit that he wasn't good at being considerate.

"You've been awake for nearly thirty hours now Sam," Harry berated gently, staring intently at the back of Sam's head, "Go to bed. You need some rest."

Breathing out harshly through clenched teeth Sam shook his head, turning to glance over his shoulder at Harry.

"I'm fine!" he protested, though the bags under his eyes said otherwise. There was a stretch of silence as the two stared at each other in a silent battle of wills, each trying to force the other to their line of thinking. On a regular day they each had a fifty fifty shot at winning, but with Sam off his game from fatigue the conclusion had been decided before they reached it. Shoulders sagging Sam admitted defeat, lowering his gaze. "Dean's been up for longer than I have," he muttered petulantly, hoping that Harry would at least send Dean off to get some sleep as well.

Harry laughed bitterly.

"The only way I'd be able to convince Dean to sleep is if he were proper drunk, and I'm pretty sure there isn't enough alcohol in this house to get him wasted." The man did have an impressive alcohol tolerance, that was for sure. Then again the only alcohol Harry even had was either stuff Dean had bought or things he'd been given by varying townspeople in thanks for one thing or another – he'd never understand the whole 'community spirit' thing.

And of course Dean would take that as a compliment, if the cocky twitch of his lips, quickly hidden behind a book he wasn't really reading, was anything to go by. Ignoring him Harry just pointed in the direction of the stairs and waited for Sam to leave.

"Someone's feeling bossy and controlling today," Dean commented when he figured his brother was out of earshot. "Acting all worried like some naggy girlfriend."

Cheeks burning with embarrassment Harry buried his face in his hands, groaning, while Dean laughed. After mentally cursing him to Hell and back Harry straightened up, glaring defiantly. The girlfriend comment was an awkward one, because he was pretty certain that Dean had no idea how close to the truth he was hitting. Not that Harry was secretly a girl or anything – though he was sure Dean would get a good laugh out of that as well. He simply, for some inexplicable reason, cared more for Sam than for anyone else he knew.

"You're giving up," he pointed out, changing the subject. He could guess most of what was going on in Dean's head at the moment. Doubt that there was any recorded way of manoeuvring out of a deal. Nerves, from sitting still and researching for weeks on end. Fear, because although she never outright said anything the demon they had dealt with had certainly laid down some heavy implications. In fact, if Harry hadn't been there he was convinced she would have given out some ultimatum to prevent Dean from messing around.

"There's no point man. If we step out of line what's to stop her from rescinding the deal? She'll rip him away again and then I'll have nothing."

It was a depressing thought, and indeed one Harry had pondered over more than once. It had also sparked a different line of question in Harry's own mind.

Analysing the demon's behaviour at a later date he was able to ascertain a few things. She hadn't been intimidated by him at all, nor was she intimidated by the thought of him running to Crowley. Instead she'd been annoyed, scathing. It had occurred to him before that demons seemed to have a split opinion about him, but he'd never stopped to think of  _why_. Indeed, unless there was mutiny in the ranks, it seemed as though Crowley may have been overstating his importance in the system when they first met all those years ago. It hadn't been a problem until now.

Damn.

If Crowley  _was_  at the top he could've tried to wheedle the deal out of him somehow, but if he wasn't, which was seeming more and more likely the more he thought about it, then he probably didn't have access to such a high-priority deal.

Double damn.

The one time Crowley could have been truly useful for something other than making Harry uncomfortable and it turns into a veritable dead end. He could still try but… not while Dean was up. The hunter was still touchy about everything. Knowing something and seeing it with your own eyes were two very different things after all. And he hadn't exactly mentioned that he was still in semi-regular contact with Crowley, so it was just a catastrophe waiting to happen.

"What do you suggest then? We can take a break for a bit, work off some steam I guess. Sam's getting too worked up about it all to be of much use in actual research anyway, so this could be a good thing."

To Harry's utter disbelief Dean shot him a relieved smile before turning to dig through the mess of paper he'd made on the table. Eventually he found what he was looking for, holding off a print-out of some news stories.

"We should go to Cicero. I'll talk to Sam about it when he wakes up."

"How about when  _you_  wake up? I'm not letting you drive anywhere without at least three hours of sleep first."

"Yes mum," Dean joked, rolling his eyes. He did however get up anyway, wandering away – there was no guarantee he was actually going to try and sleep, it was more likely he was just distancing himself from Harry; spending extended amounts of time around each other without Sam to act as a buffer was generally asking for trouble. Either way he was gone, and they apparently had a case to work on.

Stretching his arms over his head he decided he'd lay off talking to Crowley until the came back.

* * *

Sam agreed to the whole endeavour surprisingly easily, although he didn't appear overly happy about it. It was easy to see that the stress was eating away at him, not to mention the guilt which, no matter how much anyone told him it wasn't his fault, would still plague him. That was simply the sort of person he was. It was a slightly messed up but totally understandable sense of survivor's guilt.

And with the brothers heading for Indiana Harry didn't have much of a choice but to go with them. He had no desire to hunt out Ellen or Jo, because he might just so happen to have been avoiding their phone calls since 'The Big Reveal', which he was sure Jo knew about by now. He was man enough to admit that it was childish, but it didn't make him any more eager to answer the phone. So, with his 'observation period' still in place, the only thing left to do was pack up his own car and follow the Winchesters to Cicero.

* * *

Dean was way too enthusiastic about the whole thing for it to be a case. In retrospect Harry should have seen that coming. It was almost as though he'd been hoarding insignificant little article, waiting for a chance to try and convince them of the need to go. His ulterior motive presented itself when he dumped Sam out of the Impala on the side of the road by the motel.

He'd only been a couple of cars behind the impala, and Sam had been waiting for him on the street with the oddest look on his face – it was two parts disgruntled and one part fondly amused.

"He's gone to see a girl," Sam told him by way of explanation as they checked in, Sam getting a room for Dean and himself while Harry got a separate one, thankfully close by.

"Why does that not surprise me?" It was such a Dean thing to do.

Sam chuckled, but his heart wasn't in it. It was glaringly obvious to see that he didn't appreciate his brother's flippancy about trying to find a way around the deal. Harry knew how annoying it was when people weren't on the same page as you. It had happened far more than he would have liked back when he first learnt about demons.

They walked to their rooms in silence, Harry dumping his duffel bag in his own room before following Sam to his. It was never wise, he had learned, to leave Sam alone to his inner musings for too long, because they often took darker turns and he needed someone to balance the negativity his own mind only too readily produced.

"We should go get some lunch," Harry suggested when Sam was finished inspecting the room. They had driven more or less nonstop since that morning, and just because Dean would rather see some woman than eat didn't mean they weren't hungry. Reluctantly, because he was still stressed and nervy, Sam agreed, and they went to find the nearest diner on foot.

* * *

Convincing Sam to be calm while they ate was a challenge in itself with everything going on, and then some blonde chick had the audacity to drop into the seat next to Harry as though he wasn't even there. He narrowed his eyes, slowly chewing on a wedge he'd snuck off of Sam's plate, as she grinned widely across the table at Sam, acting as though nothing was wrong with the picture. His nose twitched in annoyance and he leaned his cheek on his hand, elbow on the table, wondering what to do. Sam, on the other side of the table, seemed equally perplexed with her sudden appearance.

"Can I help you?" He asked warily, subtly leaning back in his seat. She smiled a cocky, saccharine grin and leaned forward, taking possession of what was left of Sam's meal.

"How are you Sam?" She asked cheerfully, pouring an obscene amount of tomato sauce onto a small plate. Sam glanced over at Harry, completely bewildered. He didn't know her. It was all Harry needed to know to be on edge. Something about her didn't sit right with the wizard.

"Do I know you?" He queried, completely ignoring the woman's question about his health. She just kept smiling, picking wedges off Sam's plate and drenching them in tomato sauce, groaning in an almost pornographic manner as she ate. Harry felt compelled to put a whole lot of space between himself and her, but he was already pressed up against the wall of the booth as it was. Everything about her screamed  _wrong_  and he needed some time to figure out why.

"I suppose you don't," she admitted eventually, though she seemed somewhat disgruntled about the fact, "But never mind, that's not important."

"You won't leave even if I ask nicely, will you," Harry grouched, knowing it was fact without having to ask. Her gaze flickered to him momentarily, lips curling in disgust as she took him in, before focussing on Sam once more.

And suddenly, before she even opened her mouth again, that awful feeling clicked. It was harder to perceive now, with the less precise, less stable magic flowing through his veins, but it was still there. Non-human.

Clenching his fist he sent a dark look to Sam before saying, quite conversationally, "Christo." She flinched, grin morphing into a scowl, and shifted completely in her seat to glare down at Harry. Her gaze landed on the faded brand on his neck and she bared her teeth at him in a snarl, eyes black.

"Thanks for nothing kid," she growled, radiating anger. "Racist, that one," she muttered, giving Harry one last hard stare before shifting back to Sam, sitting on the edge of the bench, ready to leave. "I just thought you might want to know what happened to all of your mother's friends."

And then she was gone.

Harry was breathing heavily through his nose, trying to overcome his body's compulsive need to flee from the overwhelming stench of possession. For some reason he'd never noticed anything that…  _vile_  from Crowley, in all the time that he'd known him. Perhaps it was because Crowley was familiar to him, that his presence didn't scream danger, hadn't for a long time now.

"What the  _hell_  was that about?!" Sam cried suddenly, working himself out of his shocked stupor. Harry shook himself, blinking slowly, and moved away from the diner wall.

"I… ah… I have no idea," he admitted quietly, unclenching his hands. "Perhaps we should go back to the motel and just wait for Dean." Sam nodded his consent and, leaving money on the table for their meals, they hurriedly left the diner.

They had barely cleared the edge of the building when Sam's phone rang. His hand immediately slid into his pocket, but he was more hesitant about fully retrieving it. Harry could understand the fear. What if that crazy demon chick knew their numbers? But he answered it anyway, and a look of relief flooded his face.

"Dean, what's up? I thought you'd be gone longer."

Watching as they spoke, only able to hear one half of the conversation, Harry watched the emotions play out across Sam's expressive features. When he hung up he looked considerably grimmer than he had to begin with.

"What's happened?"

"There's a case."

"Seriously?! I thought Dean was making it up, grasping at straws."

"So did I."

Harry didn't press further, seeing as they were in the middle of the street where anyone could overhear them. Briefly he rested his hand on Sam's bicep before walking off towards the motel once again, Sam following silently behind.

* * *

"You know what? If you're going to laugh so much maybe  _you_  should wear the suit and  _I'll_  drive," Sam snapped when he saw the odd grin on Harry's face, the wizard lounging on Dean's bed while Sam changed. Immediately Harry attempted to school his expression into something more neutral, but he couldn't help himself. The suit looked endearing and ridiculous at the same time and he simply had to smile at it.

"I'm not laughing," he protested weakly, heaving himself off the bed, "It's just… Don't you think it would look better if the suit was black?" He was hard-pressed not to comment on the tie, which was frankly ridiculous, and he had to wonder where on earth Sam had found it – orange ties weren't something he could see Sam buying for himself, or for Dean, or Dean buying for him. There were boundaries.

"Black suits are too government, I'm posing as an insurance guy. And I wasn't kidding, I will make you wear a suit instead."

"Good luck with that, I don't own any suits, and you and Dean are both taller than me." Nevertheless Harry did finally manage to force his lips to stop twitching into that wide grin, because, as they say, where there's a will, there's a way, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know how exactly Sam would go about forcing him into a suit. No doubt he'd end up looking ten times as ridiculous as Sam did.

"I'm sure I'd manage somehow."

Ignoring the devious look that briefly ignited Sam's face Harry grabbed his keys and headed out to his car, pretending his couldn't hear Sam's light laughter following him.

* * *

"Find anything?" Harry asked somewhat anxiously when Sam climbed back into the car. Now that there was an actual case he was worried, he didn't like going into things blind. It was why he didn't usually engage in hunting as an actual hunter.

"Yeah. There was blood on the windowsill and on the fence. The mother, as well, she had this… bite mark, on her neck." Sam held his hands up in the air, making a rough oval shape and trying to estimate the size. "They weren't normal teeth marks, not vampire either."

Harry nodded along, humming absently in thought as he drove back to the motel. It sounded familiar, like he might have read something about it once, a long time ago, but he couldn't think why or what. This sort of moment was when eidetic memory might have come in handy.

* * *

Sam didn't really need his help researching – which was lucky, because he'd left the laptop Ash gave him back at his place seeing as though he never really used it for much. The guy knew what he was looking for, and it didn't take him too long to figure out what was what. Harry just lazed about and watched him work – thankfully he was out of that awful suit and back in some more laid-back clothes.

Harry wasn't used to crushing on people – never really had, unless you counted that extremely shallow sort-of crush he'd had on Cho Chang during fourth year – but he was pretty sure he was crushing on Sam Winchester. Badly. He didn't get the 'oh merlin I'm going to throw up' butterflies in his stomach he used to get around Cho, which was a blessing. Instead he felt pretty damn calm, like he could trust Sam with his life, which was something he just didn't do any more. He didn't trust anyone with his life, not even Crowley, who almost literally held his life in his hands.

Lying upside down on Dean's bed – because it was closest to the little table in Sam and Dean's room – with his head hanging off the end of the bed, staring up through his glasses at Sam, he found himself thinking a lot more on the subject than he usually would have. Normally he would brush off any affection or feelings of attachment and try not to ponder them, now it was almost unavoidable, it all crashing back down on him at once.

It helped ease his conscience to note that Sam would glance over at him every now and again with an odd look in his eyes, a barely there flush creeping down his neck when he'd see Harry was still watching him.

Sam was comfortable. So were Ellen and Jo. He'd like to tell himself that meant he saw Sam as family, but even with his general lack of experience with certain positive emotions he knew he couldn't fool himself like that. It simply wasn't true. Sam was different. He was special. And not in that messed up 'I have visions' way, because none of that was Sam's fault, though he felt for him, since visions were an awful curse to have to bear.

"Dude," Sam finally spoke, breaking through his thoughts, " _what_  are you staring at?" He closed his laptop as he spoke, apparently done with his research.

"You," he answered automatically, before realising what he'd just admitted to and blushing furiously. Sam gaped at him, eyes wide and cheeks pink, and Harry groaned, rolling over and burying his face in the duvet, wishing his mouth had a filter.

Clearing his throat Sam offered up a shaky "Okay then," and hurriedly rang Dean who, as fate would have it, chose that moment to walk through the motel room door.

The older hunter looked between Harry, curled up and mortified on the bed, and Sam, flustered and with his phone still ringing in his hand, held up his hands in defeat and said, point-blank, "I don't want to know."

Harry let out a slightly hysterical chuckle before pulling himself together and climbing off the bed, retrieving a beer from the fridge. Normally he wasn't big on alcohol, but right now he sort of needed it.

Dean plucked Sam's phone from his grasp and hit end call, since it appeared that Sam had no intention of doing so himself, and snapped his fingers in front of his brother's face. Rearing away from them Sam blinked rapidly, staring up at his brother, colour slowly fading from his cheeks as he calmed.

"Oh, hey Dean."

Dean raised an eyebrow at him and pointed over to Harry, who was sitting on the counter with his beer.

"I'm not saying I want to know what happened, but that is not normal, and I don't know what his alcohol tolerance is like, so if we need him and he's drunk I'm blaming you."

"I can hear you," Harry interjected somewhat awkwardly, pointedly looking down at the bottle and not over at Sam. "It'll take a lot more than one bottle to get me drunk. You forget I was friends with Ash."

A heavy silence fell over them after his blunt statement, until Dean turned back to Sam and asked him what he was calling about.

"Oh, right. Dean, how much do you know about changelings?"

"What, evil monster babies?"

"No, not necessarily babies."

"The kids." Harry glanced across at them, finally taking an interest in the case at hand. "Creepy, stare at you like you're lunch kids."

"Pretty much," Sam sighed. "There's one in every victim's house."

"The bite marks," Harry murmured, eyes wide. "That's despicable. Monsters with children fetishes are the worst. Where do you suppose they are? The original kids? They won't have killed them, they need them alive, thank Merlin."

"Somewhere underground. A place like this it probably wouldn't be far underground; something like a basement would work. They could pretty much be anywhere."

"We kill them with fire, right?" Dean checked, packing a bag. It made Harry wish he had more practical equipment, but all he had was himself and his magic, which he would much rather not use.

"Yeah," Sam confirmed needlessly. It was easy to tell that Dean was worked up over something.

"And you said that all the kids are vulnerable?"

"Yes. Dean-"

"There's someone I have to check on."

Sam frowned, standing and accepting the bag Dean packed for him. Behind them Harry slipped off the counter, silently crossing the room.

"Dean, we don't have any time to waste," he reminded him, trying to convey the seriousness of the situation to his older brother. Dean's eyes were just a little bit wild, and Harry understood. Stepping forward, placing his arm out in front of Sam to shut him up, he met those panicked hazel-green eyes and nodded.

"Let him go. We have two cars between us. If we find the place we can text him and he can catch up."

Sam's shoulders slumped and he nodded in acceptance. Dean flashed a ghost of a grin, a thanks, before racing out the door. Harry moved to follow him, but Sam's hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"I'm worried about him."

"I know you are. But I think you should have some faith in him. He's just worried."

The grip tightened before his hand left Harry's shoulder, allowing him to start walking once more. He hesitated, but didn't glance back.

* * *

"You have no idea where you're going do you?"

"Well what do you expect?!" Harry cried, slamming his palm on the steering wheel. "It's not like I have anything to go off! Every single house in the area probably has a basement, and it's not like we can go breaking in willy-nilly trying to find the right house!"

"I know, I know. I'm sorry."

Harry sighed, shaking his head.

"It's okay, I just feel a little helpless right now. I wish there was something more I could do than simply driving around town."

"Hey now." Fingers ran through his hair and Harry blushed, holding back a shiver. "We're all a little high-strung right now. I shouldn't be harassing you when I have no more clue than you. Just drive and don't crash and I'll see if Dean's found anything."

The fingers retreated and Harry's grip on the steering wheel tightened as he fought the urge to  _whine_  of all things at their absence. And then to stop himself from smashing his head against the steering wheel, because he did _not_  just think that.

"Hey, Dean, where you at?"

Out of the corner of his eye Harry noted Sam's frown, which morphed into concern, then confusion, then understanding.

"Okay, we'll meet you there."

"Where to?" Harry didn't bother asking how Dean had figured it out – it wasn't important.

* * *

The house they pulled up at was still under construction, but in retrospect it made sense, to use someplace that was still empty as home base. Dean was already there, staring up at the house, visibly on edge. Sam practically leapt from Harry's car, heading straight to his brother's side, offering a comforting silent presence. Harry followed at a slower pace.

"So you definitely think it's here?"

"Absolutely."

"Let's go then," Harry cut in, nervously pulling at the cuff of his long sleeve. Dean glanced back, gaze steely, and took point, heading in first, signalling that he would take the back of the house. Sam headed for the front door and Harry paused, debating which Winchester to follow. In the end it was a no brainer, his body automatically trailing after the younger.

Pulling out a torch Sam headed up the stairs to the barely-there second floor while Harry stayed at the bottom, keeping a careful eye out. Every sound made him twitch, his old battle reflexes rusty and out of whack. It was exactly why he hated being in the field. The paranoia was rife within his body after all that time.

As he watched the hallway a voice caught him unawares, making him spin on the spot and flail absently for the weapon he didn't have.

"What are you doing here?"

It was a real estate woman, but everything about her screamed 'wrong'.

His hand shot out on instinct, bluebell flames appearing in his hand, drawing a harsh gasp from him and a hiss of outrage from the woman. Sam raced down the stairs to his aid, pulling the gas canister from his bag as he went, fumbling with the lighter. Harry's flames were generally harmless, but he lashed out anyway, swinging his arm out towards her. She flinched away, cagey, defensive. It gave Sam an opening while she focused solely on Harry and his active flame.

Finally getting the lighter to cooperate Sam activated the makeshift flamethrower, catching her unawares. It was anti-climactic, the way she burst into flames. When she was gone they simply stared at one another, shocked. Hunts usually incorporated a lot more violence and a lot more hit and miss. It was hard to believe she was just… gone.

The bluebell flames dissipated, leaving Harry rather breathless. He stumbled, leaning against a support pillar, and stared warily about, as though looking for someone else to jump out at them. It wouldn't have been an unprecedented instance, evil creatures working in pairs.

He sat down on the bottom stair, waving Sam off to go find his brother. A bit of exhaustion wouldn't hurt him if something snuck up behind him.

* * *

Harry hated lucky chances. That's what it had been, back in the house. A lucky chance. They were dangerous, gave you false confidence, made you cocky. It was a good thing they were all basically too worked up about the kids to worry too much about how it had happened. He'd have to be more careful, if he was to continue hunting with them. A hard-won fight was better for peace of mind than a simple one. Nothing good came from simplicity.


	28. Demons: In the flesh and of the heart

**Chapter 28 – Demons: In the flesh and of the heart:**

Standing outside of the Winchester's motel room in the morning sun – however drab the weather may have been – Harry still wasn't sure if going inside was the best choice of action. He knew Dean was gone, having seen him hop into the Impala and drive off about half an hour ago from his own room – to see that woman again he guessed, and to see if that Ben kid was doing okay after being kidnapped by the real estate lady turned changeling.

It was just… yesterday had been awkward, and there had been no time to talk it out, or try and explain it, and he wasn't sure if he even wanted to bring it up again or just try and forget it had happened at all. It wasn't as though he'd managed to do anything except embarrass himself anyway, and it just wasn't productive to their whole 'breaking a demon deal' thing to have that sort of weirdness floating around between them.

In fact, it would probably be for the best if he turned around and went back to his own room to hide out until it was time for them to leave. It would leave no time for confrontations, and he could suss out a way to filter himself on his own to try and prevent it from happening again.

 _Good plan,_  he decided, nodding to himself. Now if only he could convince his feet to move.

The door swung open before he could get his body to obey him, revealing Sam's bemused face. He appeared half amused by Harry's predicament and half confused by it. Understandable, he supposed.

"You hover long enough and someone might just call the police," he joked, taking in the conflicted look on Harry's face and opening the door wider. "If you don't want to talk that's fine, but at least come inside."

Pulling his gaze away from studying the grain of the wooden door Harry allowed himself to be ushered inside, averting his eyes from Sam's face and once again taking a seat on Dean's bed. Sam locked the door behind him and dropped into one of the dining chairs, one situated between the bed and the table. He wrapped his fingers around the tall glass of water situated on the table, idly tapping on the cold clear surface. It was the tapping that eventually caught Harry's attention enough for him to look up and finally take a proper look at Sam.

"You look like shit," he mumbled, not sure whether or not he should be surprised about it. "Did you sleep at all last night?" One night without sleep wasn't necessarily detrimental to a hunter, but it was a continuation of a long string of days with extremely little sleep, and even one hour of sleep would have been a blessing at this point, both for Harry's state of mind and for Sam's body.

His only immediate response was a blank stare before Sam shook his head, taking a sip of water and gesturing to the room at large. It was only then that Harry noticed the scattered papers, the pictures, the scribbled notes and crumpled scraps. Apparently Sam had had a busy night while Dean slept.

"Sam…" All thoughts of yesterday's incident flew from the forefront of his mind as he really,  _really_  took in Sam's bedraggled appearance. "The case is closed, right? What were you  _doing?_ "

Sam frowned softly, tilting his head back against the chair. It was all very unnerving. Harry shifted hesitantly on the bed, kicking his shoes off and crossing his legs. He then uncrossed them, then knelt on the mattress, sitting on his feet. Finally he crossed his legs in front of him like a primary school kid sitting on the mat and leaned forward, hands resting on his knees.

" _Sam._ "

"I had to check, okay? I wanted to, I don't know, prove her wrong. But she was right Harry. They're dead. Everyone."

The haunted look on his face made it difficult for Harry to process and actually understand what Sam was talking about. All he wanted was for him to stop looking so depressed, so put-out, but as much as it might have hurt seeing it he wasn't about to put himself out on the line, not yet, not now. It wasn't a good time.

"Strategic truths are a demon's best friend," Harry replied quietly. There was no point in platitudes. Yes, he could say he was sorry, but he'd learned a long time ago that those words were an empty, cold comfort. It would only mean something if it came from the person responsible, and even then it was too late to do anything about it. He could also tell Sam that the demon would have wanted to unnerve him, upset him – that he was playing into her hands – but he could understand the need to know, the need to be sure.

"What I want to know," Sam began, sitting up straighter, "Is how  _she_  knew about it."

On any given day Harry would generally make it his business to dissuade people from interacting with demons, especially on purpose, but today was not one of those days. Today it was probably necessary. Plus, if their lunchtime meeting was anything to go by, Sam was more likely to kill her than she was to kill him. She had seemed… interested in him, and though normally that was a bad thing, he'd let it slide for now. Just this once.

"Okay then," Harry easily acquiesced. "We'll ask her." How, he wasn't sure. They didn't have a name with which to summon her, and no name meant he couldn't ask Crowley to track her down either. They'd just have to hope she showed up on her own.

"No Harry, we need to- Wait, what? You're  _okay with it?_ " Sam was staring at him with that special sort of 'are you crazy' disbelief he generally saved for Dean. Considering that whole tense 'I made a deal with a demon' talk several weeks back it wasn't surprising that his compliance would come as a shock.

Nodding his head Harry leaned back a little on the bed as Sam leaned forward in his chair.

"I can understand why you'd want to talk to her."

He tapped his fingers on his knee, drumming out nonsense messages in the modified morse-code he and Hermione had developed for discussing sensitive topics around Ron.

"I just don't know  _how_  we're going to talk to her."

Sam had no answer for him, and they elapsed into silence again.

"Hey," Sam said suddenly, maybe five minutes later, when Harry had started humming awkwardly to himself again. "You never did explain the whole Peverell/Potter thing."

"Oh." Harry stopped humming, flexing his fingers and observing Sam. It was honest curiosity, and perhaps a desperate bid for a topic of conversation that wasn't the demon or Dean or the changeling. "It's not a very interesting story." But he didn't refuse to explain either. He probably should have made a note to do it sooner, after the Auror situation, but it had slipped his mind with everything else that was happening.

Harry straightened his legs, hanging them off the edge of the bed so his feet were on the floor.

"Harry James Potter. That's my birth name. Officially now it's Potter-Black, because my god-father made me his heir before he died. Peverell is a name I remember reading on a gravestone in the cemetery where my parents are buried. I needed a new name. A new identity. It didn't have to be drastically different – I didn't bother changing my appearance. All I did was associate myself with a name that wasn't Harry Potter. As long as I think of myself as Harry Peverell, and not Harry Potter, then I'm in the clear. It was enough to trick the tracking spells at any rate, because here I am, safe and sound from the British Ministry. I didn't want to take the chance of being found and dragged back to England, to be used as some puppet. I don't want hero worship for doing my damned job."

It was weird, talking about this sort of thing. Sam didn't know the whole of it, the enormity of what was being said, what he was admitting. He was a Lord twice over, though thankfully only in the Magical Community, and he wasn't ashamed to admit that he was perhaps running away from his duties as well as everything else back in Britain.

"Don't you miss it there sometimes though?" Sam asked curiously, resting his chin on his interlocked fingers as he listened.

"I had –  _have_ , I suppose – a rather complicated relationship with Britain." Harry smiled wryly, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I'm honestly better off without them, and the greater public is better off without worrying about me all the time. There are a few people I miss from time to time – Hermione and Ron, they were my best friends at school; Fred and George, or Gred and Forge, Ron's older twin brothers. I miss my god-father most, but as I've said, he's dead now, so it doesn't matter where I am, I still wouldn't be able to see him. His best friend though, I feel bad for abandoning him sometimes. I was all he had left of my dad, who was one of his only friends.

On the other hand, there are people I certainly don't miss. The Minister for Magic, for one. He was a cowardly bastard if I ever met one. Staying in power was more important to him than fighting the threat that was right in front of his nose. There were bullies at school, but they were… inconsequential. A small irritant. Then in the summer there was my Aunt and Uncle. They were by no means good guardians, but I don't blame them so much for it any more. They knew what I was – the magic – from the moment I was unceremoniously dumped on their front doorstep one morning in early November, and they were scared of it. I wouldn't be surprised if they took my mysterious disappearance to completely erase me from their lives. I also wouldn't blame them if they did."

Sighing heavily he tipped his head back and stared up at the ceiling. It was a strange and confusing feeling, talking about his life after so many years of more or less ignoring it. Ellen didn't know anything about his Aunt and Uncle, in fact she didn't even know his parents were dead. It wasn't something you just threw into casual conversation after all. Sam now knew more about him than anyone this side of the Atlantic. The knowledge was a heavy one.

The mattress dipped beside him as Sam moved, coming to sit with him on the bed. Their arms pressed together, but neither made to shift away.

"Life sucks," Sam proclaimed, as though he were announcing the cure for cancer. Startled, Harry laughed, and once he started he couldn't stop. At some point during his laughing fit Sam joined him, the complete absurdity of the situation bringing him along for the ride. They collapsed back on the bed, still laughing, although they were beginning to get breathless. It was just so ridiculously refreshing to have someone make light of all the crap in his life like that, and someone who had been through their fair share of their own crap at that.

They stared at each other, basking in the warm glow for as long as it would let them, pretending for a moment that maybe their lives  _didn't_  suck.

It was then rudely interrupted by an amused throat-clearing cough.

Sam leapt off the bed as though burnt, spinning to face their uninvited guest. If the subtle nausea wasn't enough to tell Harry who it was, the oddly smug laughter and Sam's stiff posture was information enough. Their little demon friend was back.

"That was cute. Really heartfelt. Mr Racist over there is pretty infatuated with you Sammy, isn't it just the most pitiful thing you've ever seen?" She laughed again, and it turned Harry's stomach. This was not how he had envisioned his day going when he left his motel room that morning. Sam threw a quick glance over his shoulder at Harry, eyes full of hopeless confusion, before they hardened as he turned back to her.

"How did you know about all those people?" Sam demanded, fists clenched at his sides. There was nothing Harry could do, he had no right to interfere, so he sat silently on the bed, wondering if it would be better if he just left.

"It's common knowledge in certain circles." She pushed her blonde hair behind her ear and stared them down. She wouldn't have been so direct, he could see it in her eyes, but whatever cover she had planned to use had already been blown, so she didn't have much to work with anymore.

"And what circles would those be?"

She rolled her eyes and sighed.

"Certain circles of Hell, alright? Happy?"

"Why did they have to die?"

Sam wasn't giving her any space, the moment she stopped being useful she was gone, he could see it in the way he stood.

"I don't know exactly, okay? All I know, is that they were cleaning up all the loose ends caused by whatever the Yellow Eyed Demon did to  _you_." She folded her arms aggressively across her chest. If Harry wasn't feeling so tense he might have laughed. She didn't know anything, not really. She was pushing for things, hoping for an in that she wouldn't be able to procure.

"Sam, she doesn't know anything. She's grasping at straws."

"I know."

It was only once they voiced their thoughts that she began showing her own apprehension. Her jaw clenched and her fingers tightened on her sleeve.

"I think you should leave, before Mr Racist over here gets it in his head to kill you," Sam warned, jerking his head in Harry's direction. She followed the motion, sneering at Harry, her disgust and disbelief clear as day.

Shaking his head Harry stared at her, face entirely blank of all emotion. "I'm Crowley's pet, remember? Do you really want to test me?"

It would seem she didn't, because suddenly she was gone.

He never had figured out the logistics of demon travel.

Except with the demon gone, it was just the two of them again, and it looked like they were going to have to have that conversation now.

Running a shaking hand through his hair Sam turned and sat down on his own bed, facing Harry.

"Strategic truths. That's what you said. So does that mean you really are… you know…"

"Infatuated?" Blushing Harry looked away, thinking it over. "I wouldn't know. And before you go asking how I could possibly not know, remember what I said before. My Aunt and Uncle weren't exactly great people. I lived with them for fifteen years of my life. So while I might know, intellectually, what the word means, I don't  _know_  what infatuation is, not really."

"Damn, you're just as bad as Dean. I swear I'm surrounded by emotionally stunted people."

"Hey! I object to that. At least I'm not afraid to talk about it. Dean would just tell you to piss off."

"That's true." Sam tapped Harry's knee and he turned back to face him. "I'm not exactly sure what to do about this though."

"Neither do I. But listen, Sam. I trust you, more than I've trusted anyone in a long while, and that's not likely to change anytime soon. Whatever happens, happens. Whatever has happened, it's in the past. Just don't kick me curb-side, because I don't think that would be good for my health."

"Yeah… Yeah, alright man. We'll see."

Sam stood up, moving over to the kitchenette and grabbing a beer, popping the top before retaking his original seat at the table. Glancing over at the clock on the wall Harry repositioned himself on the bed, stretching out his legs and willing feeling back into his feet.

"How much longer do you think Dean will be out for?"

"Hmm? Dean? I wouldn't have a clue. Depends what he's doing I guess."

"Right..."

Harry frowned at the ceiling. He wanted to talk with Crowley, had been meaning to for a while now, but he didn't want Dean to see Crowley. It would be a sort of last-straw scenario, walking in on that sort of thing, and Dean would probably lash out at him again.

"There's someone I need to talk to, but I think it would be safer to do it in my room. I don't mind if you come with me, it's just Dean I'm worried about."

Sam glanced at him over the top of his beer, eyebrows furrowed.

"What do you mean?"

"Crowley."

His previous words echoed silently between them.

_I'm Crowley's pet, remember? Do you really want to test me?_

"Crowley's a demon." It wasn't a question, and Harry knew Sam didn't need an answer. All the tension came rushing back tenfold. Harry was putting himself on the line here, letting Sam know that he was still in contact with his contractor demon.

"I've been meaning to talk to him about the intricacies of crossroads deals."

"Do you think he knows something?"

"Perhaps. He's a businessman though. I'm not sure what he'll say."

Silence.

Harry remained seated where he was, watching the cogs turn in Sam's brain.

"I want to hear what he says."

Agreement then. Harry could work with that. He hoped.

* * *

Sam stood with his back against the door to Harry's motel room, arms folded across his chest, expression unreadable. Harry sat on the spare bed, cellphone in hand.

"There are more exciting ways to get him here, but I'm not really in the mood for pomp and rituals," he explained, dialling  _666_  and waiting for it to connect.

_"Well hello pet, I thought you'd gone and forgotten all about little old me. You off gallivanting about with the Winchesters. Did they get bored of you? Throw you to the hounds?"_

Yeah, Harry was really regretting putting his phone on speaker, though the look on Sam's face was priceless. He kind of wished he had a camera.

"No, no, I'm still in one piece, believe it or not. We need to talk. Meet me in my room at Cicero Pines Motel, now."

_"How now darling, no need to be bossy."_

The line went dead. Rolling his eyes Harry chucked his phone onto the mattress behind him and waited, tapping out the seconds on his leg.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Eig-

"Well this is a surprise."

And there he was.

"If you're trying to have me killed then I'm offended. I thought we were on better terms than that."

It was playful, joking, but the strange thing was there was an undertone of true hurt to the statement. Stranger still was Harry could understand why. They weren't friends by any means, but it wasn't as though they were constantly trying to kill one another, and, believe it or not, he had learnt a thing or two from the old demon. The hurt was justified.

"Sam's just here to listen and observe, no one's going to be killing anyone." Harry stared pointedly at Sam until he nodded in agreement, purely for Crowley's benefit. Being that it wasn't a summoning he had no true obligation to be there at all. Best not to make him leave before they had some answers.

"It's not a social call then? Shame. I was thinking of introducing you to some of the hellhounds."

Okay… Harry pushed that to the back of his mind and made a note to dwell on it later.

"I know you're not the King you claim to be," Harry told him straight out, not pulling any punches. "I want to know who the real ruler is."

Crowley's carefree demeanour dropped immediately, scowl darkening his features.

"How'd you figure it out?"

"Observation mostly. I've encountered my fair share of demons, after all. Some fear you, others despise you. The demon we dealt with for Sam's soul? She downright mocked you. If you were truly their King she wouldn't dare. But you don't really care about that. The fact that you're confident enough to call yourself King means that whoever the true top dog is is either indifferent or reclusive, exclusive. They don't care enough to stop you claiming their title. Who is it?"

Crowley glared at him and Harry sighed, pointing towards the small fridge. He always carried one bottle of hard liquor with him wherever he went, just in case of this sort of thing. Crowley sure took his sweet time about it too. It was making Sam antsy.

"Lilith holds the contracts," he said eventually, standing by the counter and holding a glass of scotch.

" _All_  of the contracts?" Harry asked curiously, because if this Lilith character had all of them then how on Earth had Crowley gone about rewriting all the rules in his?

"Well, 99% of them, about. I try and hold on to the really interesting ones." The implications there were heavy, but already known. Crowley hadn't exactly been quiet about making his interest known all those years ago when they first met. In fact, Harry broke the Statute quite often during their little meetings, working with the demon to figure out how the Wizards had hidden themselves from demon lore.

It was a weird working relationship.

"But this Lilith, she has Dean's contract?"

"It's the only other place it could be, because I'd remember handling a Winchester's deal, and I'm afraid I haven't yet had the pleasure."

"Okay… Well, thank you."

And now Sam was looking at him like he was insane, because yes, he had just thanked a demon for its help. As twisted as it was, and as much as he often hated him, Harry did owe Crowley quite a bit. The least he could do was keep a civil tongue when speaking with him.

"Pleasure. Shall I go now, before I get in the middle of your little domestic dispute?"

One of Harry's shoes hit the wall where Crowley's head had been, but the demon was already gone.

Why did he have to have such a weird demon contact? It couldn't have been someone more cut and dry, like the bloodthirsty thing that had possessed Dragomir?

Businessmen. A perfect way to develop a migraine.

"Research Lilith. That's first priority for now. Dean will probably be back soon, you should go back to your room."

Harry was no longer interested in talking, at all. It was a dismissal, and a blatant one. Sam didn't say a word, slipping out the door and shutting it heavily behind him.

Fuck.

Harry had been hoping he was wrong, that Crowley really  _was_  the King, and then he could just convince the man to change the contract.

Of course it wasn't that simple.


	29. Stilted Interactions

**Chapter 29 – Stilted Interaction:**

Somewhere along the line, Harry knew he had screwed everything up. Though he didn't know exactly when it had happened, he was pretty certain it was to do with Crowley. That was the biggest issue that had been created between the two of them, after all, and now Sam wouldn't even look at him. It was incredibly depressing.

He'd opened up to Sam in a big way, had the inner workings of his heart strewn about for everyone to see in the process (because demons were dicks who didn't know when to keep their thoughts to themselves), and now he was being ignored. Not exactly what he'd been going for when he offered to let Sam see Crowley. That had been a massive show of trust, but perhaps he had overestimated the younger Winchester's ability to cope. Demons had, after all, had a rather large part to play in Sam's life up until now, and would unfortunately probably continue to do so in the foreseeable future.

Maybe it wasn't the best idea Harry had ever had after all.

Still, he had hoped that the reasonable drive from Cicero back to Jackson would have given Sam some time to cool off. That didn't appear to have helped any though.

Dean seemed almost as confused as Harry was. After all, the two had been getting along fairly well up until he got back from checking up on Lisa and Ben. It wasn't as though the older Winchester wanted to know any of the intimate details of their disagreement, since that would undoubtedly involve a level of empathy or sympathy that he wasn't prepared to give, but some sort of explanation would have been nice. Harry would give him a heads up if he knew what was going through Sam's mind, but he was just as clueless.

In all honesty, with the way Sam had been acting, Harry had almost been expecting him to object to staying at Harry's place once more upon their return to Jackson. There were plenty of motels in the area, and he easily could have gone to one of them. Though it was probably a good sign, it didn't make the tense silence between them any less awkward. It made Harry fidgety. Being ignored in his own house wasn't exactly a new experience, but this was worse.

Thankfully Crowley had given them something to do. It meant that Harry could throw himself into research and pretend that nothing was wrong. They had priorities that they had to adhere to for the time being, instructions laid out for them that were of vital importance. Research was good. It was an excuse to not communicate with one another for extended periods of time despite being within regular talking distance. Finally, Harry was once again glad for his mountains of books. Sam could browse the internet all he wanted, while Harry hid himself amongst the fragile tomes.

They had told Dean about Lilith in short sentences, with no real explanation as to where the information had come from, because even though they weren't talking it wasn't hard to come to a silent mutual agreement that Dean shouldn't be told about their meeting with Crowley. Regardless of how much he might have warmed up to Harry in the past weeks it would all more or less go to shit if he found out Harry had invited a demon into the presence of his little brother. That sort of thing was still a complete no-go zone.

Concentration was a difficult thing to come by though. Sam seemed to be doing perfectly fine. Dean was, well, research really wasn't Dean's strong point, so he could be excused for his poor work ethic, even if he was trying harder than usual. It was  _his_  soul hanging in the balance after all. Harry however… With tension hanging thick enough in the air to cut with a knife, it was only reasonable that he be unduly affected by it all. The person he was, apparently, in love with, was ignoring his very existence, and said person's brother was going to go to  _Hell_  in less than a year if they couldn't find any answers. So if his attention had a tendency to drift from the pages in front of him, well, he didn't think he was entirely to blame.

Most of the time he was distracted he was actually keeping a mental eye out on all of the various sigils and demon traps around the property, tracking for activity around the house and powering up the little wican charms he'd scrounged up when he was magicless with his newer, more unpredictable magic. He couldn't do sensory charms very well, since he hadn't been overly proficient at them when his magic was his to control, but slipping a bit of energy into the sigils and traps to let him know when they were activated was less taxing. It was through this that, after the first week or so back in Jackson, he noticed the arrival of the she-demon from Cicero.

She had tried sneaking into the house, undoubtedly to try and talk to Sam, but she had dearly underestimated him and nearly got herself exorcised in the attempt. There was only one safe way into his house for demons, and only Crowley knew those secrets. There was a mutual understanding between them that Crowley would benefit more from the knowledge if it was his and his alone, because the more demons who had access to Harry's house the more likely it was he would be offed in his sleep.

She attempted the same endeavour countless more times over the next few weeks, never managing to get more than a metre inside the property, regardless of what side of the house she tried to gain entrance from. Harry could tell that it was pissing her off, and it at least allowed him some shallow amusement, a brief break from the stifling tension that even Dean was getting downright fed up with.

The one big mistake he made was assuming Dean was too disgusted by chick-flick moments to make a big deal out of their ongoing silent argument.

A month on, filled with nothing more than stern greetings, discussions of meal arrangements, and stiff research opinions, had driven Dean right past his 'I'm okay with ignoring this, it'll sort itself out on its own' limits. Harry had also made the mistake, once upon a time, of telling Dean which of the rooms in the house had locks on the doors, and where he kept the keys. It had been a safety thing at the time. Now it was a major regret.

Getting locked in the basement with the very person who still seemed inherently pissed off at him had not been on Harry's agenda for the day. It hadn't been on his to-do list  _at all, ever._

Feeling more tired than anything else, Harry made himself comfortable on one of the many empty crates he had lying around the basement while Sam pounded on the door. He was muttering to himself, and it sounded as though he had very real intentions of attempting to break the door off of its hinges. He would complain that the man was so open to destroying his house, but found it wasn't worth the effort. It wouldn't cost much to fix a stupid door, regardless of whether he did it himself or had to hire someone. Not that he believed Sam would actually manage it. The door was much sturdier than it looked. Hence the lock. But of course Harry never actually locked any of the doors, otherwise he might have had a set of keys on him that would get them out of the whole mess without anyone getting injured.

Shame that.

"There's no point Sam," he called softly across the room, eyes on the floor, "You'll just end up dislocating your shoulder or something. It's not worth it. Dean'll unlock the door eventually."

"What is he even trying to accomplish?" Sam huffed irritably, giving the door one last calculating look before acquiescing and turning his back to it. "Better yet, what is he going to do if the house gets attacked?"

"You hadn't noticed then?" Harry asked curiously, gazing just to the left of Sam's head, still unwilling to meet his gaze directly. "That demon from Cicero has been trying to get into the house all month. She hasn't managed yet. I may not have been an active hunter, but I take protection very seriously. It sort of comes with the territory. I've never had the best of luck when leaving things to chance."

" _What?_ "

"Yeah."

"She's here? Why?"

Harry frowned, scratching his chin and glancing up at the ceiling.

"She wants something I suppose. From you obviously, she'd have to be a true idiot to be going after Dean, and we know she doesn't exactly have fond feelings for me."

Sam snorted out a laugh and Harry had to fight back a smile. It was nice being able to talk to him for once without Sam trying to cut him off all the time.

"So she either wants something  _from_  you, or wants to try once again to convince you that she knows more about this whole Lilith deal than she actually does. Either way it's probably bad news."

The moment he mentioned Lilith all humour disappeared. He should have been expecting it really. The last month had been a massive headache for more than one reason. Lilith wasn't an easy character to figure out.

"We're wasting time with this!" Sam growled suddenly, fingers digging into his upper arms where his arms lay folded tightly and defensively across his chest.

A loud bang echoed through the room, startling Sam. Harry had smacked his hand down on the crate he was sitting on.

"Look. Whether you like it or not she's our only lead right now. I should have known that telling you about Crowley would get you all defensive. I should have talked to him in private and come up with some random story as to how I got the info about Lilith. By the looks of things that would have been far easier. I can't deal with this, okay Sam? If you don't trust me, if you want to leave, then fine, leave! But don't sit there in front of me in my own house acting like you'd rather I didn't even exist. I could deal with that from Dean, because he's like that, but not from you."

"Harry…"

"Don't." Harry held his hand up in command, heated gaze riveted to the floor once more. "You've been acting like such a jerk all month. You don't even realise why we're locked in here do you? Dean 'men don't feel emotion' Winchester got so sick and tired of feeling like the only living person in the house that he's attempting to induce a kiss-and-make-up chick-flick moment to try and smack some sense into you! Sure, I'm surprised he did it, but everyone has limits Sam. He just reached his before I reached mine. I've had a long life to build up a tolerance to people not liking me after all."

Harry refused to look in Sam's direction, breathing heavily through his nose. It was true that he had pretty deep reserves of patience, but patience is irrelevant if what you're being patient with causes too much pain. He hadn't even been pissed off at Sam until that point, but now it was all just rushing out of nowhere. The things he should or would have been feeling if he hadn't been so caught up in feeling guilty about it instead.

He flexed his fingers. His fingertips were throbbing lightly. That's what he got for taking his frustration out on a crate.

Casting his gaze upwards Harry wondered what Dean was doing. Was he listening outside the door? It seemed unlikely – initiating the talk was one thing, having to witness it was another. So he was upstairs somewhere, or outside. Harry was going to have to start wearing the keys on a chain to prevent Dean from making a habit of locking them in random rooms.

His phone buzzed with a text in his pocket, but he ignored it.

Absorbed as he was in his wandering thoughts Harry barely registered when Sam's footsteps began sounding on the concrete floor. They moved towards him, slowly, calmly, purposefully. Though his breath inexplicably caught in his throat for a moment Harry still refused to look in Sam's direction.

His heartbeat sped up, because he no longer knew what to expect from being in close proximity with the younger man.

When the footsteps stopped the crate Harry was sitting on shifted slightly, and a warm weight settled against his back. Sam had decided to sit on the other side of the crate, back to back.

Taking a deep breath in and then out Harry reluctantly allowed his body to relax, leaning back slightly against the taller man.

"I've had a lot on my mind this last month," Sam admitted softly. It wasn't an excuse, Sam never made excuses for his behaviour. Harry made a small noise in the back of his throat to indicate that he was listening, because he didn't quite trust himself to talk anymore.

"Ever since, well, you know." There were several things that could be heard after that – since I died, since Dean sold his soul, since everything went to hell in a hand-basket – but it was easier leaving it all unsaid. "It's been stressful, and I'll admit that I haven't been handling things well since then. I had sort of put it from my mind your whole entanglement with demons; it wasn't important, didn't correlate with the current problem. Then you pulled that… Crowley, out of nowhere, and it sort of threw me through a loop. Suddenly it was all real and there and happening."

Sam shrugged gently, shaking his head. Before he could give himself a chance to overthink it Harry tilted his head back, carefully resting it on Sam's shoulder. He didn't move away.

"It really shocked me, seeing the way you interacted with that demon so easily. I mean, you're  _friends_  with it. It's mindboggling. We should be running away from you. Generally that sort of behaviour spells all sorts of bad news. But it never even crossed my mind to tell Dean about it. After all the times you were there for me I just can't help but try and trust your judgment. That doesn't mean the whole thing doesn't worry me or anything, but you've been dealing with that demon for years, and I trust that you know how to deal with him.

It wasn't even, necessarily, the physical proof of the demon that set me off. It was how flippant he was, how little information he could give us. Then how little progress we've managed to make with what little he did give us. In hindsight I probably shouldn't have taken out my frustrations on you. That was completely uncalled for. It's just, it's like every time I turn around you're changing my perspectives on the world, and it sort of scares me. It scares me that there's this little voice in my head that's just whispering for me to follow your lead. Trusting people has proven to be a risky endeavour, even amongst fellow hunters, and that I still do trust you when there're so many things about you that would drive other hunters crazy… It's just all very confusing."

Sam let out a long breath and tilted his head to the side to rest against Harry's. His breath hitched again at the motion, but quickly calmed himself.

"Crowley does tend to have that effect on people," Harry muttered, closing his eyes against the harsh light from the light-bulb – the basement had no windows.

They sat like that for a time, neither talking, just listening to their quiet breaths. If he strained his ears enough he imagined he could hear Dean shuffling around in the kitchen. Perhaps he was taking the initiative for once and making food? It was unlikely though. That seemed to remain solely Harry's responsibility.

After quarter of an hour of surprisingly comfortable silence Harry opened his eyes, though he didn't move, reluctant to disrupt the peaceful moment.

"We'll get to the bottom of this eventually Sam, I promise."

Sam's disbelieving breath tickled his head but he didn't mind.

"I believe you. It's just a matter of when, and if it'll be too late to matter."

The moment was officially ruined, and they both sat up straight once more. Harry climbed to his feet and stretched, hoping to hide the flush that had spread across his pale face.

"Maybe you should call Dean and see if he'll come let us out?" Harry suggested, before remembering his own phone. He pulled it out. It was a text from Dean.

_That sounds like arguing, not making up._

He rolled his eyes. Dean was a jerk.

But he meant what he said. They would figure it out eventually. They could only hope things worked out for the better, since history was so against them.


	30. Time in Technicolor

**Chapter 30 – Time in Technicolor:**

Despite his heritage and the friends he'd made during his school years, Harry wasn't all that big on pranks. They were fine if someone else pulled them, but he'd never gotten much into the spirit of pulling them himself. That being said, vengeance was a completely different story, and was something he enjoyed indulging in when he had reason and time. It was more fulfilling than pranks, and people generally didn't expect it from him.

Once Dean had been thoroughly berated over the phone by Sam and somewhat reluctantly released them from the basement Harry gave him a day of nothing. No acknowledgement of the incident, not even the cold shoulder. Sam just followed Harry's lead, though he was sure Sam was actually plotting a suitable reaction.

Then Harry stole the keys to the Impala and left Dean wallowing in despair for two days.

When the forty-eight hours were up he simply deposited them back in the little bowl on the small table just inside the front door. It took Dean a further day to think to start double-checking places he'd already looked. Harry felt justified in the amusement it brought.

Dean's reaction when he finally did find them, coupled with Sam's caustic remarks about his brother's ability to actually locate things, just made it that much better.

* * *

Unfortunately light-hearted hijinks could only lighten the mood for so long. They had wasted away just over three months of Dean's remaining twelve so far, and had basically nothing to show for it. The knowledge settled over Harry's house one morning in a veil of gloom and refused to lift.

Eight and a half months could still sound like a long time, but when it was a countdown to death, well, nothing would ever feel like long enough. Now that they had discovered they could hold month long grudges it made the looming deadline even more perilous. Ignoring the world around them at length while the clock ticked down down down…

"You know, I've never been to the Grand Canyon," Dean piped up one morning. He was washing the breakfast dishes while Harry slumped over a book at the kitchen table and Sam was busy trying to negotiate stacks of books to reach a socket so he could charge his precious laptop. Harry ignored him, drowsy and un-processing, but Sam heard him loud and clear. He knocked over a particularly precarious book pile in shock.

"What?"

Harry frowned, pushing himself upright in his chair. He yawned and, when he realised that he wasn't actually even wearing his glasses, slumped down again, resting his chin on his arm on the table. He located the blurry mass that had to be Sam and focused there.

"Isn't that just, you know, a massive hole in the ground?" He mumbled, sounding about as unimpressed as he could when all he wanted was more sleep. "I dunno why people think it's so cool…"

The coloured figure that was Sam shifted slightly closer, and Harry heard him chuckle lightly. Although – or perhaps because – Harry couldn't see him, Sam offered up a soft affectionate smile at his sleepy rambling. Dean hummed in discontent.

"It's not about it being interesting. Hell, I doubt many people actually think it is. It's the principle of the thing. We've lived in the US our entire lives but we've never stopped by for half an hour to check it out. Seems like something we should get around to."

"… Dean, the Grand Canyon is a massive tourist attraction."

Wiping his hands on the dishtowel Dean frowned over the counter at his younger brother. "What's your point?"

"You…" Taking a breath Sam pondered briefly how best to word what he was thinking. He ran a hand through his lengthening hair. "Dean. You hate touristy things. Like, more than you hate those HellHound guys, what were their names… Ed and Harry? So forgive me if I'm a bit put out by your sudden decision."

"Well maybe I just want to see what all the hype's about," Dean shot back, carefully keeping any irritation out of his voice as he spoke over Harry's disconnected mumbling about hell hounds. There was nothing anyone could say to make him want to know what sort of things went on in the guy's mind. His brother fell silent, expression half-way to bitch face number three.

"Please," he whispered softly when it appeared obvious that Harry had fallen asleep again – he'd been up all night doing who knows what, and otherwise had been sleeping even less than Sam. "Just, don't talk like you're trying to tick things off your bucket list. We still have time. We'll figure something out."

Dean turned his back under the pretence of throwing the dishtowel on the bench by the sink. While it was true that he had at first resented having to have anything to do with Harry Peverell, it was crashing down on him just how important it was that Sam develop and decent relationship with him. Because while his brother continued to hope for the best, Dean was a realist. Deep down he knew that there was no getting around it. The Deal was set in stone. He would go to Hell and he would have to hope that Harry would be able to keep his little brother in one piece for him.

"I bet it's pretty boring anyway."

He couldn't bring himself to look in Sam's direction, frightened of what sort of expression he'd see.

* * *

Harry frowned darkly at the sheepish form of his eldest house guest. Dean's sleeves were singed and were still smoking lightly, but neither man was overly worried about it. It was a good thing Sam had gone out about an hour ago and had yet to return. In fact, it was lucky there was still a house for Sam to come back to at all.

"You know, after all these months I had sort of hoped you would know how to use the things in my kitchen. Was I overestimating you Dean?" He stood with one hand on his hip and the other tugging uselessly at his messy hair. His shirt was singed too, but he would deal with it later.

Dean attempted an apologetic grin, but it turned into a grimace as he accidentally looked in the direction of the smoky kitchen once more.

"Well… I've never cooked on a gas stove before…" Trailing off, knowing his explanation was rather pitiful, Dean tugged at the singed threads of his shirt.

"You've made that painfully obvious," Harry sighed out, nose crinkled in frustration. "Damn Dean, you're lucky I was even here! I normally go shopping on Sundays! Do you  _want_  to burn my house down?! What would that even accomplish? Fuck…"

Shaking his head Harry sank into a chair, fingers fidgeting agitatedly with the rim of his glasses.

"So do you think we could, uh, not tell Sam about this?"

Fingers freezing Harry stared incredulously at the other man.

"And how do you propose we do that? I can't fix the blinds or the stove or the scorch marks with my magic. The most I can do is probably get rid of the remaining smoke. You think he's not going to notice? Don't you think he'll be suspicious when he sees me trying to fix the oven tomorrow? You can try all you want, but he's going to notice."

"Damn. You think he'll-"

"No. Sam's not going to believe  _I_  set the kitchen on fire."

"Oh well. It was worth a shot."

Harry's eyes narrowed menacingly and Dean held his hands up in surrender.

"I would make you pay me back for it or something, but it's not like any of your money is actually yours, so there's no point."

Dean didn't bother acting offended. It was pretty much true. Though they hadn't had to resort to credit card scams much in the last few months, due to Harry insisting on paying for everything.

"Don't do it again? Please?"

"Sure thing man. I'll never go near your kitchen stuff again. Swear."

Rolling his eyes fondly Harry waved his hand in the air, spinning some magic up into his palm. It was still confusing for him, trying to use his magic. It was why he didn't want to chance repairing his stove with it – it would probably explode instead. Taking his attention away from the slightly apprehensive Dean – he still got like that whenever Harry performed some small feat of magic, though it seemed like he was more worried about Harry passing out like he did the first time Dean had the misfortune of witnessing his powers – he concentrated on the thought of fresh air. His fingers began tingling. Holding his hand palm up he let it gather, until there was a small sparking whirlwind visible only to his magic sight.

Taking a deep breath Harry blew the magic out of his palm, dispersing it into the air. What he had discovered, in brief moments of experimentation with his new magic, was that now that it was wilder and less structured, it was rather enticing to add a flair of… dramatics to the spell-casting. It was something that couldn't be achieved when waving a thin stick in the air.

But of course, even as the air cleared the fatigue hit him. There was no heady rush, given that household magic was hardly dark in nature, and not much beyond a numbing of his fingertips on the pain scale. He pulled his hand to his chest, curling his fingers carefully. The numbness would soon fade to pins and needles, and then to nothing. A fairly calm price to pay for a bit of fresh air.

"I suppose I could tell Sam was I trying out some new warding sigils that blew up on me…"

Dean brightened instantly at the chance to keep his reputation in-tact.

"Thanks man, I owe you one."

And, true to his word, Dean never attempted anything more complicated than washing the dishes in Harry's kitchen again.

* * *

The Winchesters had gone off on a case, taking a breather, a break from research. In their absence – he had decided not to go with them this time around – Harry had taken to catching up on sleep and picking up a few fix-it jobs around the neighbourhood.

When they returned, and told him what had transpired during their case, he began wishing he had gone with them. On the one hand, at least he knew who the HellHounds were now, although they apparently had expanded and now went by the GhostFacers, but on the other… Some poor guy had been murdered by the ghost in that house because the GhostFacers didn't know when to back down. If he'd only been there, maybe he could have done something…

His inner turmoil must have been pretty clear on his face – after living alone for so many years he'd stopped trying to hide his emotions – because Dean sighed, rubbing a hand over his face, and Sam rested a hand on Harry's shoulder, shaking his head in sympathy.

"You couldn't have known something like that was going to happen," Sam reminded him, compassionate instead of pitying, which Harry appreciated. It wasn't news to him that his guilt-complex was about as bad as his hero-complex, no matter how settled the latter had been in recent years, but pity always made him up-tight and defensive. "You don't really have control of your magic anyway, not to mention you don't know how it would shape up against a ghost. I know it's not what you want to hear, but you probably wouldn't have made much of a difference."

Harry scowled at the last part, but had to admit that it was a fair assessment. He would have just gotten in the way. His shoulders slumped.

"I know…"

That didn't make it any less painful. Kid was just an intern. He had no idea what he was really getting himself into.

"You got rid of the ghost though?"

Dean nodded emphatically from behind Sam and Harry smiled weakly.

"Good."

Nobody spoke much in the following few days.

* * *

The days ebbed and flowed at a constant rate, never-changing, but they stopped paying such rigorous attention to the passing of time. Months passed by without their conscious notice. Trips were had, hunts performed, and research came and went in waves. Not much was useful.

Suddenly they barely had three weeks left to them. The knowledge crashed down over the trio in a cold wave. Unpleasant and bone-chilling.

They had gotten nowhere closer to solving anything, and they were almost completely out of time.

It was about time they resorted to some more drastic measures.

Harry stared pensively out the window, contemplating the warding. Their snarky visitor hadn't completely given up, even after all these months. Almost as though she knew they would eventually come crawling back to her. Well. He'd just have to risk playing right into her hands.


	31. Lilith's Legacy Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is only the first half of chapter 31, but I've been stumped on the middle of the chapter, so here it is anyway.

Harry stared despondently down at the phone in his lap.

It was the middle of the night, possibly closer to dawn than anything else, and though Sam and Dean were both actually asleep for once Harry hadn’t followed suit, nor did he feel remotely fatigued. He’d spent the last hour on the phone with Crowley – it was safer than having him come over, when the Winchesters could conceivably be up at any moment. The call had been… Stressful wasn’t the right word for it. It was tense, because Crowley obviously didn’t really care whether Dean lived or died. The demon didn’t understand Harry’s anxiety, couldn’t appreciate the friendship he’d created with the hunters over the last year. Talking to him like that was a jarring experience. Just like each previous talk it drove home the knowledge that Crowley was only attempting to help them because he liked Harry. It was far from reassuring.

Though they had spoken at length, it was just one more dead end. Harry should have known better than to hope but… it was difficult. Lilith had proven to be a taboo topic Downstairs. Either you were in the know or you weren’t, and no one seemed willing to upset the fragile balance. Crowley cut an intimidating figure, but demons were petty, and he had neither the position nor the power to force answers out of them.

In the end it was only due to Crowley being in a particularly talkative mood that dragged the call on for so long. It had included several new revelations that Harry simply didn’t have the time to ponder at the moment. Crowley tended to talk to him a lot, which could get tedious, but there was more to it than that. It was an unusual level of trust, being allowed access to the demon’s mind. Their connection spanned across an impressive number of years, even if contact had been basically non-existent in the middle, and it had changed and developed with them. It was a camaraderie of sorts now, in opposition to mere business. There had been a shift of perception at some stage.

It meant Crowley wasn’t afraid to voice his displeasure in regards to Harry’s ever-building feelings toward the younger Winchester. At the time the fairly light-hearted banter had been a relief; a respite, however momentary, from the crushing deadline that loomed over him.

Now, with the phone in his lap and the living room in perpetual darkness, it served to reiterate how devastated and wrecked Sam would be if they failed. Acting without thinking was a trait both brothers shared when driven by emotion or adrenaline. There was no telling what would happen.

Exhaling softly Harry leaned back, tilting his face up to the ceiling as if it might have the answers he so desperately sought. He pulled his glasses off – mostly useless in the dark anyway – and settled them on the arm of the couch. Logically he should have attempted to at least grab a few hours of sleep, but he knew it would be a futile effort. His entire body was tense, coiled tight, ready to spring at any moment. They had two weeks left to them. He had already put off voicing his suggestion for seven days, but he knew he would have to tell them when they woke. There was no time left to figure something out on their own.

**oOoOo**

Dean’s refusal was immediate and vehement. Predictable. It took Sam a moment to figure out who Harry was talking about, but he didn’t dismiss the idea out of hand. Harry wasn’t certain that it was a good sign for his state of mind. Then again, he’d taken her advice before, and it hadn’t exactly led him astray. Upset yes, but the information had been accurate. Apparently that was enough for him to risk trusting her.

“The only problem,” Harry reminded Sam, sitting around the table with steaming mugs of bitter coffee, “Is that we don’t know how to contact her. We don’t know her assumed name and I can’t take the risk of summoning a different demon in here. Without specifics summonings are mostly for rank which, might I add, is another thing we don’t know about her. All we can do is wait for her to show up again.”

Dean grunted, clearly unhappy that they were even considering getting assistance from a demon. It was a good thing no one had thought to tell him about Crowley yet. It wouldn’t have gone over well.

“We don’t have time to wait!” Sam protested, ignoring the suddenly dark expression adorning his brother’s face. “How do you even know she’ll come back? What if she’s finally given up?”

Turning his mug in his hands, not making any move to drink his own coffee, Harry stared into its murky depths.

“I’ve said it before. She wants something from you. I’d wager she knows plenty about Dean’s deal too. She will definitely be back.”

It was his own certainty that worried him. From what he’d gathered through personal experience, demons were not patient beings. If it wasn’t a deal, it wasn’t worth it. Which meant she had a serious agenda, one big enough for her to spend a year doing nothing but hover.

Lifting his gaze from his coffee Harry met Dean’s disapproving glare and shrugged. He was grasping at straws. Sam wasn’t going to give up until Dean was gone, and maybe not even then.

**oOoOo**

She came back the next day. Sam had set up a vigil by the window, watching and waiting, and Harry couldn’t help the burst of relief – not because he wanted to see her, but because it was apparent Sam hadn’t been planning on sleeping at all until she showed up.

The moment he noticed her presence along the property line Sam raised the alarm, shocking Harry back into awareness from where he had been cataloguing the tiny cracks in the ceiling. Dean, who had been sitting keeping watch over his wayward brother, groaned irritably, shooting a glare out the window.

It was silent in the house. They weren’t talking to each other. Sam stared at Harry, as though wondering what was taking the wizard so long. Dean stared out the window, arms folded, jaw clenched. It seemed as though he was hoping the demon would leave again before Harry made his move. When he paused to think about it, Dean’s behaviour was completely understandable. After coming to terms with his quickly approaching death he was afraid they were going to mess it up and negate his deal, which would end with Sam dead once more.

For a moment Harry hesitated, wondering if it was really worth the risk. Then he caught Sam’s pleading emotive eyes and he realised he couldn’t say no. Not to Sam. Not now.

Harry took a deep breath, collecting himself. Demons still made his skin crawl. He flexed his fingers, wishing for the first time in a long time that he had his wand with him, even if he probably wouldn’t be able to use it. The weight of it in his palm or pocket would have been a comfort. Planting his bare feet on the floor Harry nodded jerkily, body thrumming with nervous energy. Sink or swim, this was it. Last chance.

The path leading from his front door to the street was cold beneath his feet. Overhead, clouds covered most of the sky. She was waiting patiently for him on the sidewalk, a troubled mix of confusion and triumph singing from her posture. Harry had altered one of the outer sigils, and she had noticed.

“Why so glum witch boy?” She asked, teasing, trying to gain the higher ground already.

“I’m letting you in,” Harry explained calmly, if coldly, not rising to the bait. He wasn’t in the mood for any sort of witch/wizard debate. “But if you put a single toe out of line then I’m exorcising you. No second chances. This is your only warning. Understand?”

“Well you’ve got me all sorts of curious now witch boy.” Harry twitched at her apparent new nickname for him. He almost preferred being called a racist. “Lead the way.” She smiled, close-lipped, unfriendly. Payback perhaps, for making her wait for nearly a year. A chill raced down his spine at the look, but he ignored it, maintaining eye contact.

“What’s your current name?” He asked instead of moving, standing his ground. She tilted her head, observing, eyes narrowed, blonde hair falling across her cheek. It was an odd question, for a demon, Harry knew.

“Ruby.”

No last name. She probably didn’t know it. Demons weren’t too interested in the people they possessed. Harry nodded.

“Alright then.” Shifting his weight on chilled feet he ignored the way Ruby was scrutinising him. “I’m sure you can tell that my wards are still keeping you out.” He glanced around, grimacing when he saw old widow Corby blatantly watching them from across the road. “I’ve tweaked them a little, but…” Harry held his hand out to her, trying not to imagine what sort of rumours would be floating around the neighbourhood by tomorrow. “You have to be in contact with the ward-maker until you’re inside.”

Ruby raised an eyebrow, clearly amused. “Now now, did you set this whole thing up just to hold my hand? What would Sam say?”

Gritting his teeth Harry smiled benignly, eyes shut.

“Do you want to come inside or not?”

At this point he would just about rather she left. She certainly knew how to get on his nerves.

Ruby laughed lightly, seemingly cheerful, but malicious if you knew what to look for. Turning, she waved to Sadie Corby before grabbing Harry’s still outstretched hand and taking the lead, dragging him quickly back towards his own house. She was _skipping._ It was official, she would be his gossip-dictated girlfriend by dinner.

“Bitch,” he grumbled, nearly tripping up the front steps. Ruby just grinned. Once the front door was closed behind them Harry ripped his hand free, surprised by her audacity. She was already back to ignoring him, instead examining the interior of his house. He was glad the Winchesters were still in the living room.

“Not bad witch boy, I was expecting something a bit more archaic, but I’m impressed.”

Harry couldn’t care less what she meant by that. Shoving his hands into his pants pockets he shuffled around Ruby, standing in the middle of the entranceway, and headed further into the house. The dull thud of her heeled boots on the carpet told him she was following obediently.

When they entered the living room Sam had his back pressed against the cool glass of the window, tall form spread out as he lounged in the window seat. Dean had dragged one of the kitchen chairs in, and was straddling it backwards, arms folded across the wooden back. Both men immediately focussed on Harry and Ruby when they stepped into the room. Harry shut the door behind her.

“Well hello boys. Why the long faces?” Her voice was far too smug as she strolled casually around the room, taking in all the little details. There was a reason he hadn’t taken her to his library.

Dean growled low in his throat in warning. Instead of heeding it, Ruby smiled wider, folding her arms across her chest and leaning back against the wall, one foot flat against it. It was as though there was some switch in her brain that refused to turn off when it came to being mocking. In a way it was almost impressive that no one had killed her in an angry rage yet, except she was too cunning to be offed by a mere drunk.

“We think you know where Lilith is,” Sam told her bluntly, ignoring her purposefully abrasive greeting. “We think you’ve been hanging around out here all year because you want something from us, from me. That maybe you were hoping to hang your knowledge over us so that we would dance to your tune. But I’ll make it clear right now that there will be no jumping through hoops. You either help us, or we’ll _encourage_ you to give up the information you have.”

Harry had to hand it to him, Sam was brilliant at passive anger. You could tell just by looking at him that he was immensely frustrated, but he tended to keep his temper calm when talking. He really would have made a good lawyer, if he’d been given the chance.

“Are you threatening me with _torture_ Sam? Really? Torturing a demon?” Ruby threw her head back, mindful of the wall, and laughed.

“Actually,” Harry interjected from where he was now seated stiffly in an armchair, “Torture would be an extreme last resort. Believe it or not that’s not the only method available to us in order to get answers. I may not be any good at brewing myself, but I chanced dashing in to the nearest Magical Street (which is miles away actually, very inconvenient, but what can you do) and found a very accomplished apothecary, where I managed to find some very high-grade Veritaserum. Do you know what that is Ruby?” He tapped his fingers nervously on the arm of the chair, switching between nonsense morse code, half-remembered music, and an agitated tap-tap-tap.

Sam and Dean both looked to him in confusion as Ruby stared, contemplatively, at him. Obviously they could all tell the word he’d said was some slightly bastardised Latin, but it didn’t mean anything to any of them. The Winchesters had never bothered asking where he’d disappeared to that day – since it _was_ Harry’s house, and it wasn’t odd to think that he might have needed some breathing space after all that time.

“You know that I’m a Wizard, correct?”

“Obviously.”

“But how do you suppose I got my powers?”

Ruby frowned at him, clenching her fingers in her jacket sleeves.

“You’ve got something going with that arrogant bastard, Crowley. He gave you powers, like a demon gave me mine when I was still human.”

That made Harry laugh. It made her seem so… _naïve._ She truly believed that that was the only type of Witch there was. He had to commend the Magical Communities for staying so under the radar that even the denizens of Hell didn’t know they existed. But it was time to shatter her illusion. And he just felt _terrible_ about it.

“Hate to break it to you, but that’s way off. I was born with my magic, unlike you. I didn’t need to perform some stupid deal to get those disgusting powers you demon-deal witches have. It’s all natural. And Veritaserum is an extremely powerful truth serum that compels the drinker to answer truthfully to any and all questions asked of them while they are under the influence. I don’t know what sort of effect it would have on a demon, but I’m all for experimentation.” His smirk was deadly – he wouldn’t be too sad if the potion somehow ended up killing her.

“That’s impossible,” she snapped at him, left foot slamming down on to the carpet to support her weight as she surged forward suddenly. “Natural-borns don’t exist. They’re a barely remembered myth that no one even believes in anymore.”

Harry tapped the side of his nose with his finger.

“Well now you know. And since I just let you in on an age-old secret that only a handful of demons know, I think it would only be fair to make it an even trade, don’t you?”

“But that information is useless to me. Why should I make a trade?”

“Well you could always sell it to the crossroads demons. I’m sure they’d love to know about a whole new market for their services. ‘Course wizarding folk don’t really believe in demons either, so it wouldn’t be lucrative business, but you don’t have to add that bit in.” He didn’t even bat an eyelash at the fact he was effectively selling out his entire race. If they were particularly lucky Ruby wouldn’t be alive long enough to do anything with the info anyway.

She shook her head, but it lacked conviction.

“I think that you want Lilith gone as much as we do, and that you have a way to do it. But perhaps you want, or need, assistance? Are you not strong enough to take her out on your own?”

She hissed at that, aggravated, but Harry ignored her, beginning to pace back and forth across the centre of the room. Her temper was nothing compared to Voldemort, or even Snape for that matter, and he was not easily intimidated.

“Doing it on my own would be suicide,” Ruby admitted reluctantly, curling in on herself slightly as she moved to lean her weight against the wall again. Her gaze followed Harry as he paced. “It would be foolish at best and still suicidal at worst to go after her even _with_ you three. But you’re the only option I’ve got.”

“So you don’t have any comrades? Or were you just not brave enough to search out any other potential dissenters, worried about what might happen if you said the wrong thing to the wrong person? I get that demons are all for self-preservation or whatever, but from my own personal experience, if there’s one person who wants someone dead, there’re generally others as well.”

“Does it matter if she doesn’t have friends?” Dean snapped, gripping the back of the chair he sat on with white-knuckled fingers. For a moment Harry paused in his pacing, tossing a glance over at the older brother. He was paler than usual, staring at Ruby like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. Harry shrugged it off, making a note to talk to him later.

“I suppose not,” Harry acquiesced easily, folding his arms loosely across his chest and tugging on the sleeve of his t-shirt as he thought. “After all, demons don’t have friends,” he expanded, carefully not thinking about whatever weird thing was between himself and Crowley. “But allegiances… Demons are just like humans in the fact that most of them are sheep. They follow the power. They make and break alliances in the blink of an eye. But on the other hand, they’re apathetic to the plights of other demons that don’t interest them. Something had to _happen_ to make you want Lilith dead, otherwise you wouldn’t bother.”

“Watch your mouth, smart arse.”

Stopping in front of Ruby Harry put his hands on his hips and leaned forward into her personal space.

“Don’t worry, I wasn’t going to bother asking what your issue was. You won’t tell us. And I don’t really care. You’re apparently willing to die for this, and that’s fairly telling.”

Stepping away from her Harry turned his back and marched over to his armchair, collapsing into it with a low sigh, gaze dark and unreadable. Tugging his knees to his chest he rubbed a hand absently over his still chilled toes, eyebrows drawn together behind his glasses.

“Enough of this,” he muttered softly, resting his chin on the top of his knees. “For now, we trust her. I’d rather not use any of that veritaserum today, because it’s very expensive and I still don’t feel comfortable venturing out into known magical communities here in the States. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here Ruby; try not to squander it.”

“Whatever.”

Shaking his head Harry buried his face in his hands, suddenly exhausted. He hadn’t realised how very wound up he really was. This entire stupid meeting was do or die, and they hadn’t come to a proper conclusion yet, but he no longer had the energy to expend on pointless hostility. He could only hope that Dean wouldn’t push the issue too much.

After a worried pause Sam decided to speak up again.

“So, _do_ you know where Lilith is?”

Harry could barely make out Dean’s snarky utterance of disbelief.

“I don’t know where she is right now.”

“Told you.”

“ _But._ ”

Even with his eyes closed Harry could imagine the venomous look that probably adorned Ruby’s pale face, blond hair swinging angrily around her.

“She’s going on some sort of celebratory vacation in the next few days. I know where she’s going, though not why she’s chosen now of all times to take any sort of surface holiday.”

“That’s better than nothing.” Shoving his glasses up on top of his head Harry straightened up, visibly worn out, and stared in the general vicinity of the slightly fuzzy outline of Ruby, looking but not really seeing anything. “So where is she going to show up?”

“New Harmony, Indiana.”

“That’s…” Even after having spent so many years living in the States Harry still had basically zero grasp on the geography of the country.

“A couple of hours north of here,” Sam supplied for him.

“Right, thanks. And she’ll be there _when_ exactly?”

“In nine or ten days.”

“That’s cutting things pretty close,” Sam pointed out quietly, as though he didn’t want to actually acknowledge just how close they were getting to the deadline.

“But not as close as it could be.”

“Okay okay, knowing where she’ll be is fine and all, but we still don’t know what to do when we’re there.” Dean scowled at Ruby, entirely unimpressed by her. Once again she was being almost entirely unhelpful, and it was impossible for Harry to tell how genuine that was – if she truly didn’t know very much, or if she was plotting something that might get them all killed.

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose and slipped his glasses back on, uncomfortable with giving her any sort of advantage over him, even inside the hefty warding that surrounded his house. Ten days left them with four days to figure something else out if they failed, or simply give up and try and make those last four days something a bit more memorable and positive than the majority of the last year had been. That was, of course, if they didn’t all get themselves blown up by Lilith once they hunted her down.

“Somehow I don’t think a civil conversation is really on the cards,” Harry drawled, tugging at a loose thread on his sleep pants. “Not that I have any idea what we could even say to her that might convince her to let us all off the hook – she doesn’t sound like the compromising sort.” Not for the first time, Harry desperately wished Crowley had more sway over Hell than he did. Because with him in charge, and the weird pseudo-BFF thing they had going on, they would have had _so much leeway_ to figure this stuff all out. “You know more about Lilith than any of us. What do we do?”

Ruby shuffled her feet on the carpet, twitchy under the combined weight of three suspicious, expectant gazes.

“Other than the fact that we’re talking about _Lilith_ , it’s fairly simple. We need to kill her.”

Sam’s nose scrunched up as he frowned, shifting in the window seat until his feet were planted firmly on the floor. He rested his elbows on his knees and his chin on his folded hands, staring, watching, thinking.

“And killing her is going to break the deal?” He asked eventually.

Ruby’s lips tightened and she clenched her jaw, pointedly looking just to the left of Sam rather than straight into his fierce eyes.

“Well, it’s like Witch Boy said, there’s no talking with her. Even if you could, in case you hadn’t noticed, Demons aren’t really all that into pity or sympathy or any of that human crap.”

The avoidance was sort of like a punch to the gut. Actually killing Lilith was a pretty big long-shot anyway, but Ruby wasn’t willing to commit even a little bit to the idea that it might actually break the deal. Crowley would have _told_ him if it were that easy. They could probably kill all the crossroads demons in the world and it still wouldn’t help. Deals just didn’t _work_ that way.

Harry frowned thoughtfully, covering his mouth with his hand. It felt like they were being used; the question was, what were they being used for? Petty vengeance? A coup?

He couldn’t read the situation, and he despised the feeling.

“Demons aren’t easy to kill,” he said instead, keeping his suspicions to himself for the time being. “Are you telling us you have some human-friendly method or something?”

Ruby almost thankfully shifted her frustrated gaze to Harry, not relaxing her stance at all.

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

Everyone tensed as she reached into her jacket, pulling out a jagged knife.

“You want us to kill Lilith’s meatsuit,” Dean grouched, thoroughly unimpressed. “Won’t she just ghost off somewhere else once we do that?”

Ruby adopted a patronising tone, suddenly back in her element. “This isn’t just any old knife, you idiot.” She spun it around. Harry caught a glimpse of something carved into the blade. “This is a demon-killing blade. Kill the meatsuit, kill the demon.”

Runes, Harry realised, staring at the blade. Runes, or Enochian, or some demon script. It reminded him of a blade he’d owned once upon a time, one that he’d never really tested and had abandoned on the floor of a bookstore.

“We’d still be killing an innocent person in the process,” Harry pointed out, glancing over at Sam. He was obviously conflicted, but there was nothing Harry could do about it.

“What’s your point?” She sighed frustratedly at the disbelieving looks they shot at her. “Oh come _on_. Do you even know what the chances of surviving long-term possession are? Slim to none. Probably more for Lilith, since she doesn’t like getting her hands dirty, but even if her vessel’s body is still relatively intact, do you think you could say the same for her mind? You’d be doing everyone a favour.”

“That’s enough,” Harry warned, fingers caressing the keys hanging beneath his shirt. “I would like to examine the knife, if you would be so kind.” It wasn’t a request. He plucked it from her fingers when he moved to stand before her, dropping it on the armchair out of her reach. She stayed silent, but her face was pale with anger, eyes flashing black.

Dean made an odd sound in the back of his throat.

“You are only here by my good graces,” Harry reminded her, “and my patience is running out.”

Lashing out, Harry grabbed Ruby’s arm, sending a violent shock of magic through her body. It stunned her, muscles seizing in a way she hadn’t had to deal with since she became a demon. He knew it wouldn’t last for long.

Nodding to the Winchesters, Harry partially pushed, partially dragged Ruby from the room. He manoeuvred her down the hallway and the stairs, shoving her into the basement and slamming the door behind her.

Even as he fumbled for the keys around his neck he could feel the magic leaving her. After that stunt she was going to be pissed, and he wouldn’t be surprised if she made it her personal mission to kill him. He would deal with that later.

He’d never been more thankful for Dean stoking his paranoid tendencies by locking him in the basement. Ever since then he’d taken to carrying copies of the keys to anywhere he feared Dean might use against him again.

“Bastard!” Ruby screamed, slamming her hands against the door.

“Sorry dearest,” Harry chimed back, sliding the deadlock into place and turning the key, “but I don’t trust you not to try and pull something while we do the waiting thing. Have fun down there!”

Harry had never been more grateful to have warded his basement so thoroughly. Initially it had been to prevent miscast magic from escaping the room and potentially wrecking other parts of the house, but it worked just as well as a make-shift prison. There was no way he was letting her wander his house for the next week – someone would end up dead at the rate things were going.

When he made it back to the living room, Harry found Sam examining Ruby’s knife, and Dean staring a hole in the carpet. Though he wanted to go to Sam – to check up on him, to get his thoughts on the knife, any number of things – it was obvious that something was up with Dean, and it seemed a confrontation about it would be unavoidable.

Readying himself – he hoped it wouldn’t come to shouting, but with Dean you could never tell – Harry walked over to Dean’s hunched figure and tapped him on the shoulder.

Dean just about growled at him, but obliging lifted his gaze. Harry met it head on, nodding towards the kitchen. Dean rolled his eyes, but reluctantly agreed, getting to his feet and stomping around the corner to the next room.

“Ruby’s locked in the basement,” Harry called to Sam.

Sam nodded absently, staring at the carvings on the blade as though they held the answers to all of life’s questions. Which, while slightly worrying, meant Harry could talk to Dean without interruptions.

“What is it then?” Dean asked when Harry came into the kitchen. He was straddling yet another chair from the table, fists white-knuckled and arms tense.

“You’re too tense. Something’s freaked you out.” Harry silenced Dean’s inevitable protest with a look. “Tell me what it is.”

Dean frowned and averted his gaze. The silence was only allowed to drag on for a minute before Harry spoke again, stern and commanding.

“Tell me. If there is even the slightest chance of this insane plan working, you need to be well enough to do your part. Right now I doubt your capabilities.”

Insulting Dean Winchester was always a difficult path to go down, but it never failed to get a rise. That was what he needed. Answers.

“Fuck you man. If you could see her, you wouldn’t be sitting there all calm and collected, and she certainly wouldn’t be in the fucking _basement_ ; you’d have wanted her as far away from here as possible.” He slammed his fist into the table-top in frustration.

“Dean, what do you mean by ‘seeing her’?”

Dean cringed, realising what he’d let slip in his anger. Even so, he relented. While he hated talking about his feelings, and anything even remotely related to his feelings, it was true that he was seriously unnerved by it all.

“It’s one thing to know that demons possess people’s bodies,” Dean explained slowly, “but it’s another thing entirely to _see_ that. I can… I can see what she actually looks like. The demon.”

Harry leaned back against the counter, tilting his face up towards the ceiling.

He’d never really thought about that before. It wasn’t like demons could interact with the world when they weren’t possessing someone’s body; what they looked like amidst that hazy cloud of demonic energy had never been something he’d cared about.

“I’m not going to ask what she looks like,” Harry assured into the silence. If he ever got too morbidly curious, he was sure Crowley would find a way to show him. “But this could be useful.”

“How?”

Harry levelled an unimpressed look at Dean at his tone.

“If you can see Ruby, you should be able to see Lilith too. That means you can make sure we don’t attack anyone who isn’t possessed while we’re in New Harmony.”

“I doubt I’ll be able to tell them apart,” he warned.

Harry smiled a little darkly, lowering his voice.

“I’m sure it will be no real loss if Ruby gets caught in the crossfire.”

For the first time since Ruby was mentioned to him the previous day, a wicked grin crossed Dean’s face. It promised retribution.

Harry didn’t want to know, but if plotting the demise of a tentative temporary ally lifted his spirits, then he wasn’t going to do anything to discourage him.

**oOoOo**

The nine days spent in waiting were anything but calm.

Ruby stayed locked in the basement, Harry having given explicit instructions to Dean – the only other person who knew where the keys were – not to let her out, not that he was likely to want to. In retaliation to her treatment, she had taken to screaming and banging about and just making a general ruckus at odd hours of the day.

Harry would be glad to be rid of her.

Dean eventually relented to Harry’s suggestion that he tell Sam about the things he was seeing. It would, after all, be an asset when they went after Lilith, and Sam deserved to know what was going on.

They slept sporadically, no one really sleeping any better than they were before Ruby showed up.

Sam buried himself in attempting to identify the various symbols that covered the surface of Ruby’s knife, successfully ignoring Harry and Dean the majority of the time. Harry had to wonder if that was on purpose, throwing himself at the first thing that could hold his attention for an extended period of time so he didn’t have to try and figure out how to act in regards to his brother.

It was depressing, but inevitable.

Time ticked by, and they didn’t know what to do, sitting stagnant in wait. The Winchesters were men of action, and they had made it very hard for Harry to try and live a quieter life.


	32. Lilith's Legacy Part Two

Though two cars would have made more sense, no one fancied being alone in a car with Ruby when they finally let her out of Harry’s basement. And because Dean refused to leave Baby parked at Harry’s house while they were out of town, the four of them ended up in the Impala. It wasn’t cramped, space-wise, but with Ruby stewing furiously in the back it felt suffocating.

The first three hours of the drive were spent in a heavy silence, broken only by the low thrum of music from one of Dean’s many cassettes. It was when they were only an hour out from New Harmony that someone finally spoke up.

“Lilith has a type,” Ruby said casually, stretching out as much as she could in the limited space of the back seat. “Little girls.” She examined her nails. The tension in the car shifted, thickening.

“What’s your point?” Dean bit out, knuckles pale as he clenched the steering wheel a little too tight.

“Just thought I’d point it out,” she replied flippantly. “I was just wondering if you lot have it in you to kill a little girl.”

Harry stared at her incredulously. From the corner of his eye he could see Sam itching to reach for the demon blade. Did she have a death wish?! Because if she didn’t stay very quiet she might not make it to New Harmony. It wasn’t as though they actually needed her, save as an extra set of hands, or as a distraction.

“Remind me again why you’re not dead?”

“Because it would be rude to kill a girl with her own knife?” She laughed, but then thankfully fell silent again.

She’d given them food for thought. Unpleasant food for thought. They’d all been in agreement that Lilith should die, one way or another, because even if it didn’t break the deal it was one less piece of evil wandering the earth. But they hadn’t really processed – or had perhaps avoided thinking about – the fact that they’d have to kill her host too. If it came down to it, _would_ they be able to kill a little girl, essentially in cold blood?

The last quarter of the drive was even more uncomfortable than the three hours before it.

**oOoOo**

You could almost feel the demonic vibe the moment you entered New Harmony. It wasn’t anything obvious. It just felt almost like everyone knew there was something wrong, something off happening in town, but they weren’t sure what it was or how to deal with it. There was a slightly subdued manner to each person they saw in the streets.

It became even more noticeable once they ditched the Impala, walking the streets with Ruby playing tour guide. For Harry, the closer they got to Lilith’s hidey-hole, the more it felt like they were zeroing in on a locator beacon. There were _so many demons_ about that it made his skin crawl. Usually he could only sense a possession if they were right in front of him, and even then it was only sometimes, and only a sense of _off_ , not of demon. Here, it felt like he was drowning. There’d be no way for him to tell who was demon and who wasn’t once they were there.

That little sixth-sense of his was something Harry had become used to, and for it to fail him now left him feeling wary. It felt wrong, having to rely on Ruby and Dean to tell him who was who.

“Which house?” Dean asked, a little louder than Harry would have liked. Ruby waved her hand agitatedly and hissed “ssssshhhhhh.” They moved slower after that, hoping not to draw attention.

Eventually they came to a turn in the road where Ruby forced them to stop, keeping behind a row of tall hedges.

She snapped her fingers in front of Harry’s face. “Witch boy, can you make us invisible?”

Harry paused. His eyebrows furrowed in thought. Invisible?

“I’m not sure. There’s a camouflage spell, that makes you blend in with your surroundings provided you don’t move too fast, but I’ve never tried it without my wand. I don’t know if I’d be able to pull it off.”

“No one can see us right now, genius, so give it your best shot.”

For a moment, Harry allowed himself to imagine exorcising her. It was a calming thought. He didn’t appreciate being bossed around by her.

“Fine.” He moved a little further from the edge of the hedge, just to make sure.

Harry actually had no idea what the incantation for the disillusionment charm was, or if there was one at all, but he could work with that. He’d been doing it for years, bull-shitting his magic as he went. Intention, that was the important part. Focus.

He took a deep breath, placing his hand on Sam’s head. He tried to remember the strange sensation that accompanied the spell.

Beneath his fingers, Sam shuddered. Harry opened his eyes, not sure when he’d closed them. He could still sort of see the outline of Sam’s body, but that might have been because he was in physical contact with him, and he knew where to look.

Harry turned to Dean. “How does it look?”

Some of the tormented shadows in Dean’s gaze were overcome by shock.

“He’s still there, right? I can sort of see him… Sammy?”

“Yeah Dean?”

“Oh man, that’s a sweet trick.”

Harry smiled awkwardly.

“I suppose I’m doing you next?”

“Make me invisible, magic man.”

 _Great,_ he thought, _more nicknames._ Harry shook his head in exasperation, but placed his hand on Dean’s head. He went through the process again, trying to ignore the way Ruby was tapping her foot on the pavement. It was like a countdown.

“Okay then,” Harry said, stepping away from Dean’s blurry figure. “I don’t know how long this’ll last before it wears off, all right? So try not to dawdle.”

“Oi.” Ruby flicked Harry in the ear. “What about me?”

Harry stared at her in complete disbelief.

“Yeah right,” he laughed. “As if I’d be dumb enough to make you invisible. Who knows what sort of trouble you’d make. No, you and I are going to be the distraction.” Harry wasn’t confident in his ability to cast the spell on himself, so this was the best method. “You guys should hurry up and go.”

“Sure, but be careful.” Sam’s voice came from somewhere to Harry’s left.  He nodded, listening to their careful footsteps for a moment before he grabbed Ruby’s wrist.

“Let go of me!” She snapped, but Harry held on.

“No way. Now, this is probably going to end badly, but I’m about 50% sure that they won’t kill me. Beat me up, sure, but I’m hoping they’ll leave me alive. You can escape at any time, that’s what you demons are good at. So we need to buy them time. Keep reinforcements from going after Sam and Dean. Understand?”

She snarled at him, but there was really nothing she could do about it. She could either go out there alone, or go with Harry. The result wouldn’t be much different in the end.

“ _Fine._ ”

Harry edged towards the end of the hedge, carefully peering around the corner. He focussed his attention on the person closest to their position. He pointed his finger in their direction, and muttered “stupefy.” To his surprise, the demon he hit simply scratched at his side, where Harry had hit him, and glanced around.

“Useless,” Ruby muttered behind him.

Harry frowned, confused and annoyed. He tried again, taking a breath and forcing more energy into it. _Stupefy._ The spell connected with more of an oomph than he’d been going for, but at least this time it worked. The figure crumpled, falling to the ground.

“Wait for it…” he murmured.

Every other person in the dead-end street froze, turning to their fallen comrade. This was it.

Harry grabbed Ruby’s wrist once more, and dragged her with him into the middle of the road.

He tried to come up with some witty taunt to throw at them, to spur them into action, but he was at a loss. Instead, he started firing off more spells, gritting his teeth.

Harry wasn’t sure how long they fought for. Everything blurred for him, a constant stream of spells and fists and noise. He ached from hits he hadn’t noticed receiving, and blows he couldn’t remember landing. All he knew was that he was getting tired, and drained, and a little dizzy.

Then, something unexpected happened.

Without warning, the demons all left their hosts at the same time. Harry had lost sight of Ruby some time ago – he wasn’t sure if she’d gone inside the house, or gotten dragged off somewhere else, or if she’d simply fled. He collapsed on the road, watching bodies fall over left and right. There was no telling how long the residents of New Harmony had been possessed for, but he hoped most of them were okay.

Something must have happened inside, to Lilith. A sinking feeling in his gut told him it was too much to hope that they’d managed to kill her. Chances were she’d fled, though he couldn’t fathom why.

Harry’s hands were bloody, and his limbs were shaking with exhaustion. He’d tried so hard to knock the demons out of commission without harming their host bodies too much, but it turned out demons were more resistant to magic than humans were. They were also a lot angrier, and stronger.

“Ruby?” He shouted, voice cracking a little. It had been a long time since he’d been involved in a battle like this. The adrenaline was more chilling than he remembered.

There was no answer. Harry hadn’t exactly been expecting one.

It seemed like a bad idea to spend too much time in the street. If they were alive – he wasn’t going to check, but he could pretend – then there was no telling when they might start waking up. Being a stranger in a group of neighbours would heap all sorts of suspicion on him.

He was halfway to the house when Sam and Dean caught up with him. They looked shaken and beat up, and there was really only one conclusion those expressions could mean. Harry asked anyway.

“Lilith?”

Sam glanced at Dean, who obviously wasn’t going to answer, then shook his head. Even though that was the answer he’d been expecting, it felt like an enormous weight had just been dumped on his shoulders.

He glanced around the street. “Let’s get out of here.”

**oOoOo**

They didn’t go back to Jackson.

Downtrodden by their failure, and all around depressed, the battered trio holed up in a low-key motel in the next town over. Far enough away from The House to be able to start mentally distancing themselves from it, but close enough that they didn’t spend too long driving.

Harry, the only one currently capable of being anywhere near polite, managed to convince the lady at the front desk to give them two rooms right next to each other, with only minimal snarling and a dead-eyed glare he wasn’t even aware he was wearing. Considering how beaten up they all looked, and the ripped and worn quality to their clothes, their moods hadn’t helped the intimidating factor, but at least she hadn’t kicked up a fuss.

They all piled into the same room, a heavy cloud hanging over them. Dean was drowning in a deeper version of his usual stone-faced silent suffering, but he’d never believed in the plan much to begin with, and Harry, past the haze of failure, supposed it was possibly anger instead. He was still twitchy, the hallucinations he’d only reluctantly told them about no doubt still hovering on the edges of his mind, growing ever stronger and more persistent.

Whereas Harry had thrown himself on the motel couch, and Dean was seated stiffly on the edge of one of the beds, Sam was pacing the length of the room. He was shaking, expression furious but eyes absolutely heart-broken. No matter what happened, Harry would never know quite what Sam was going through right now. He didn’t have any family, after all, no matter how close he might have been to some people in his teens, and he’d never had anything anywhere near the sort of relationship the two brothers had.

It was a long time before anyone spoke again. They slept intermittently, exhaustion dragging them under and nightmares forcing them back up. While Harry was awake he’d almost gone out to find whatever alcohol he could, but decided against it, because the last handful of days they had together shouldn’t be heavily clouded like that, not when everyone was already so on edge. They didn’t need any extra fuel for fights these days.

“I don’t want Sam here when it happens.”

Those are the first words out of Dean’s mouth when Sam goes on a reluctant food run. They know they probably don’t have long for this talk, and it’s a talk neither is overly comfortable with having, either, particularly with each other, but they also know it’s something that needs to be said.

“How will I know when that is?” Harry asked him, putting out of his mind the _how_ and the _why_ , completely serious. In a manner of speaking, this is, after all, sort of Dean’s dying wish, and even if Harry hadn’t agreed wholeheartedly with the notion – which he did, Sam shouldn’t have to see that – he didn’t really have any right to deny him it.

Dean waved his hand vaguely near his ear, that ever-present distraction clear in him even then, as he strove one last time to try and be the responsible older brother.

“I can hear them.” That Harry already knows. “They’re getting louder as time passes, but there’s just something… I can tell they aren’t real. It’s just, off, slightly. But I just have this feeling that I’ll know, when it’s time. So, so when I tell you to go, just, just take Sam and go, okay? Do that thing you do, the teleport thing, and take him far, far away from here.”

Harry eyed Dean for a moment, looking deep, past the anger and the hurt until he found that little bit of fear he knew was hiding away somewhere. He nodded once and gave Dean his word that he would do as he asked.

When Sam came back from his outing, with a suspicious lack of ‘healthy’ food and more pie than he would usually buy, Harry was back on the couch, feet on the arm, hands on his stomach, staring blankly up at the ceiling. There was nothing about the air in the room to suggest the talk that had happened while Sam was out, because tension was tension and it was still thick, ever rising as the countdown ticked ever lower. Dean accepted a slice of pie with a murmured thanks, and if Sam hovered a bit more than usual then no one commented on it.

No one ever went into the second room. Harry had booked it partially out of habit, and partially so he could give the brothers some privacy in their final days together. Only he couldn’t convince himself to leave. There was a very tenuous balance existing between the three of them, and he couldn’t bring himself to do anything that might rock the boat.

**oOoOo**

With the rising of the sun on the final day, Sam woke with a start, jumping straight from sleep to motion without hesitation. There was a dark jitter to his movements, and a hopeless desperation surrounding him as he locked himself in the bathroom.

As the sound of the shower permeated the thin walls, Harry and Dean found themselves eyeing each other from across the room. Neither had slept that night. They all knew what day it was. They knew what was coming. Sam himself had slept restlessly, but neither had had the heart to wake him, because even bad dreams were still sleep, and he had desperately needed it.

Harry glanced between Dean and the door to the bathroom, offering up a soft questioning gesture, as if to say _do you know what you’re going to do?_ They hadn’t really talked about it at all since Harry made that promise, but there was an extra sense of urgency now. Could they really just leave things like this? Sudden and broken and fragile?

It took a while for Dean to respond. He wasn’t surprised. His hallucinations had been getting progressively worse, his eyes often following the path of something no one else could see. Even Sam had given up on pretending he couldn’t see it happening, and that was all the worse (Harry could swear something had shattered inside the younger Winchester when the truth of the hallucinations really hit home, and it was all he could do not to scream and rave at his own uselessness, not being able to help or even to reassure). Eventually, eyes lost and frantic, Dean shrugged and shook his head. He had no plans, no ideas, nothing to offer. It was hard to fault him for it. Sam might have been losing a brother, but Dean was the one dying.

“Should I leave?” Harry whispered quietly, readying himself to climb off the couch and retreat, perhaps just to the spare room they had yet to enter.

Dean’s gaze flickered around the room again, tension in his jaw, but he shook his head again. “Can’t risk it,” he whispered back, looking up at the clock on the wall.

Harry slumped back into the couch, ignoring the crick in his neck and the ache in his bones from sleeping there for the last few nights. Dean had a point, but he didn’t have to be happy about it.

They’d all been in life-threatening situations, but Harry had never had to sit by and watch someone die before. Yes, it had been a year in the making, but it had never felt as real as it did now, the deadline looming only hours away.

The bathroom door swung open, a whirl of steamy air escaping into the main room.

Sam hadn’t bothered to dry his hair, water dripping down his face and no doubt also down the back of his shirt. His eyes were rimmed with red, and dark circles stood out starkly against the sickly pale shade his skin had gained over the last week. Harry glanced up at him and immediately retreated to the kitchenette. Sam had always been a bleeding heart, wearing his emotions on his sleeves and in his eyes for all to see if they just bothered to look, but this was just horrible. There was no hiding the heartbroken loneliness simmering through his entire being, and just looking at Sam felt like a punch to the gut, and maybe even a knife to the heart. To think, that by bringing him back they had caused him so much pain. That Harry was going to have to put his whole being on the line to stop Sam from doing something stupid to reverse the situation once Dean was gone.

He shuddered. Suddenly a breakfast beer seemed like the best idea in the world.

**oOoOo**

Sam was exhausted. The too-hot shower had done little to ease the turmoil of his mind. The cogs had been spinning for days, but some of it still refused to compute. His brother was dying and it was his fault. Of that, he had no doubt. The hardest part was knowing that Dean was doomed to Hell, without even the slightest chance of going to Heaven (because if Hell was real then surely Heaven was too, right?) instead. That, that burned like an all-consuming terror in his gut. Because there was no way his time in Hell would be anything less than, well, hell.

Death was terrifying, and Sam wasn’t afraid to admit that he was scared of dying, but… He _had_ died. True, he didn’t remember anything about it, but he had still been dead. If Dean had just let nature play out, they wouldn’t be sitting here right now, resigned to yet another death.

Over in the kitchenette Harry popped the cap off a beer, the sound strangely loud in the heavy silence.

Sam absently rubbed the towel over his wet hair, biting his bottom lip in anguished thought. He’d just remembered how Harry had admitted to trying to sell himself in exchange for Sam’s life, trying to keep both brothers safe and out of harm. What would it have been like, he wondered, if Harry had succeeded? Dean wouldn’t be dying – at least, hopefully not through any fault of Sam’s – but Harry would have been long dead; at least, he would be if he understood Harry’s attempted deal properly.

Sam glanced across the room, watching the spunky wizard who usually abhorred alcohol down his beer like it was water. This past year with the three of them together had been, despite all the looming deadlines and fighting, pretty damn good really. If Harry had died there would have been so many things he’d never have learned about his friend, so many moments missed. Would he have cared? They’d been friends before then, of a sort, though they rarely saw each other and communicated mostly over the phone. He would have been sad, but would he have been devastated with Dean alive and well?

“Shit.” Sam smacked himself in the forehead with the butt of his palm, berating himself for even considering ‘what if’ situations. He didn’t want _anyone_ to die for him, end of story.

His heart ached as though it were about to crumble to dust, but they’d tried their hardest, done everything they could think of, and this was it. He’d spent the last three days unfairly angsting over their failure, while Dean sat silent in the face of death. If he owed his older brother anything, it was to try and be there for him in his final hours, to show him that he could be strong even when he was dying inside.

Mind made up, Sam threw his damp towel on the ground and climbed to his feet. He ignored the wide-eyed look Harry threw him over the top of his bottle, and situated himself on the edge of Dean’s bed. Dean was sitting up against the headboard, knees drawn to his chest in an oddly childish gesture, his eyes flickering about the room. It was painful, seeing Dean like that, and knowing there was no way to help him.

“Dean?” Sam sat still, waiting for Dean’s eyes to focus on him.

“Sammy?”

“Hey.” In the face of Dean’s questioning look, Sam mustered up a weak grin for all of three seconds, before it morphed into a bit of a grimace. “Are you okay?” He cursed himself the moment the question left his lips, but it was such a reflexive question that he couldn’t help himself.

“Just peachy,” Dean snarked, but it lacked some of the usual bite.

“Listen,” Sam said quietly, not quite meeting Dean’s eyes. “I’m sorry for vetoing that trip to the Grand Canyon.” In hindsight, surely it wouldn’t have hurt at all to take a few weeks out to do some stupid touristy things, make a few good memories before doomsday.

Dean chuckled weakly. “That was probably for the best,” he assured, relaxing the death-grip he had on his legs and slouching back a little. “It’s just a big hole, right? Nothing great about that.” Dean reached forward and clapped his hand on Sam’s shoulder, shaking his brother a bit.

“Yeah, it’s totally lame.”

It was strange, talking about trivial things like the Grand Canyon, but Sam didn’t want to fight with his brother, not today, and trying to have a straight talk about feelings would almost certainly start something. Even on the best of days Dean avoided talking about emotions like they would do him grievous bodily harm, and this was far from a good day. Instead, Sam tried to draw comfort from the hand still resting on his shoulder.

**oOoOo**

Harry watched the brothers, a bitter smile tugging at his lips. Sam had finally come out of his funk, which could only be good news, but it didn’t make things any easier. Dean might not be able to see it, as distracted as he was at the moment, but Harry could see just how hard even just making conversation was on the younger Winchester. Sam could pretend all he wanted, but he would never be okay with this.

The guilt would be the worst. Harry never would have been able to look the Weasleys in the eye if Ginny had died back in his second year of school. It wouldn’t have even been his fault; not really. No one would have expected him to go up against a basilisk and a shade of the Dark Lord and actually come out the other side victorious. They probably wouldn’t even have blamed him for it; Mrs Weasley, bless her soul, likely would have thanked him for trying anyway.

So Harry didn’t quite know what it was like to blame yourself for a death, but he could imagine.

He clasped his now empty beer bottle in his hands and watched the hands tick by on the clock. Though he didn’t know what time they were waiting for, it was still creeping closer and closer.

**oOoOo**

It was early in the evening when Dean froze. He and Sam had spent most of the day talking – about what Harry wasn’t sure, because he’d been trying to give them as much privacy as possible without actually leaving the room – but now he sat silent, eyes wide and crazed. Harry leaned forward from his perch on the bench, worried for the first time that day.

Earlier, Harry had forced his magic through the walls of the room, weaving a crude sort of silencing spell to make sure that no one else from the motel would come to see what was happening when it was finally time. His veins still burned from the usage, but he’d made sure not to drain – or incapacitate – himself too much, knowing that he still had to get Sam out of the way before he could even think about letting his magic get the best of him.

“Dean?”

Harry was on his feet and moving before Dean even registered he’d spoken his name.

“Do it,” Dean demanded, voice hoarser than usual as he reacted to something only he could see.

Harry crossed the room in quick strides, levelling Dean with the most serious look he could muster as he came to stand next to Sam – who looked equal parts freaked out and confused. Dean hunched in on himself, cowering. Harry wrapped his arms around Sam’s waist and forcefully spun them around on the spot, whispering apologies as he moved.

The ringing in his ears almost sounded like the vicious growls of a hellhound as he disappeared from the room.

**oOoOo**

Sam screamed.

The moment they landed (back in Harry’s living room, the first place he could think of to take them) the duo sunk to the floor, Sam clawing at the back of Harry’s shirt as he cried out in anguish.

“Take me back!” he begged desperately, pounding his fists meekly against Harry’s back as though he knew the futility of it all. “I didn’t… I didn’t get to say goodbye.”

Harry said nothing, knew he could say nothing to ease Sam’s pain. Instead, he wrapped his arms around Sam’s shoulders and merely held him, through the screams and the tears.

Sam slumped helplessly in his arms.

Harry prayed, to a god he wasn’t sure existed, to Crowley, to anything and everything he could think of.

_Let Sam be okay. Just this once, give us a miracle._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate this chapter. This is definitely not my best work.
> 
> I always knew this episode was one I was going to need to write, but I could never have imagined how damned frustrating it would be. I’ve spent long hours glaring at Word, hoping that maybe it might write itself so I wouldn’t have to, but of course that didn’t help.
> 
> In the end I couldn’t bring myself to watch the actual episode, which was part of what delayed the chapter – trying to convince myself to just watch it already – hence my avoiding a lot of things.


	33. After He's Gone

Despite nearly every Hunter rule in the book, Sam refused to have Dean’s body burned. Perhaps that should have been worrying; it was like leaving the back door unlocked on the off-chance he might stumble home in the middle of the night.

Sam hadn’t seen the full extent of the injuries Dean suffered from the hellhounds though. Harry had refused to bring Sam with him when he went to fetch Dean’s body – and their things – from the motel, and he’d fixed him up as best he could before returning, covering the nastiest wounds that wouldn’t heal or fade or even react at all to his meagre attempts at healing. If Dean _did_ come back, somehow, god forbid, it would be devastating.

Part of him agreed though. So he humoured Sam, and they buried him in a clearing, telling only Bobby what they were doing. It was a relief, not having to watch him burn. The flames always reminded Harry of witch hunts, and no amount of humorous stories in History of Magic textbooks could make the thought of burning alive any less horrifying. John’s pyre had been unsettling enough – he didn’t need to see two Winchesters burn.

Instead, they found a clearing away from any potential witnesses who might see them burying a body and assume they were murderers, and laid Dean to rest there. Sam carved a couple of words in Latin on the closest tree trunk, and they held a silent vigil for a few minutes before Harry managed to convince Sam to leave.

All in all it was a solemn affair, and they drove back to Jackson in silence.

**oOoOo**

Harry made the decision to tell Bobby and Ellen about what happened _after_ they buried Dean. He had been afraid that they might protest their choice not to burn his body, and had known that if faced with Ellen’s disapproval he likely would have caved. Convincing Sam would have been a whole other issue, but one that thankfully hadn’t come to pass.

Bobby was gruff, as usual, and told Harry off for burying Dean without him. He also berated him for not asking for more help – though Harry got the feeling Bobby knew his assistance wouldn’t have changed the final outcome.

In the end Harry was too scared to tell Ellen about it. He made Bobby promise to pass on the news with a heavy heart.

Things weren’t going to get any easier from here on out.

**oOoOo**

Just over two weeks after they buried Dean, Sam and Harry’s relationship hit a pretty rocky patch.

Sam hadn’t been sleeping much. It was both from being woken by nightmares, and from refusing to sleep in the first place. He was stuck more or less in the same cycle he had been before Dean’s death.

In an attempt to counter it, Harry found himself doing much the same thing. He kept watch in the guest room Sam was sleeping in, oftentimes attempting to glare Sam into submission when he refused to rest. That meant Harry didn’t sleep all that much more than Sam did.

One evening they were having one of their very determined staring matches. They were both sitting on Sam’s bed. Harry was frustrated, because he really just wanted to go to sleep, but he couldn’t have Sam trying to run himself into the ground. He was frowning quite heavily, eyebrows furrowed as he attempted to force Sam asleep.

Sam, for his part, wasn’t paying all that much attention. Instead, he was staring at Harry’s mouth.

By the time Harry noticed that, Sam was already in motion.

He launched himself across the mattress, a wild look in his eyes, and Harry didn’t even have a chance to react before Sam’s lips were on his.

At first Harry kissed back instinctively, because what else was he supposed to do? One of Sam’s hands was on Harry’s shoulder, the back of his neck, in his hair, the other at his waist, and Harry had no idea what was going on.

He was getting swept away in the current that was Sam Winchester.

_Finally!_

_I can’t believe this is happening._

_This shouldn’t be happening._

_Why is this happening?_

Somewhere through the haze Harry registered cool fingers against his skin, his stomach. It was like someone had drenched him in cold water.

Harry shoved Sam away, frown back in place, heart pounding frantically. “What the hell was that?”

From the floor – Sam hadn’t bothered to catch himself, shocked at being so violently rejected – Sam looked utterly confused, dark shadows in his eyes.

“But,” he floundered, “I thought you…”

“I do.” Harry shifted on the edge of the bed, clasping his hands in his lap. He’d never actually said it, and he thought he’d been pretty casual about the whole thing, but who knew what sort of things Sam had been reading into, what memories suddenly making sense in a burst of clarity. “But Sam, you’re _hurting_ , you’re angry, you’re bloody well sleep deprived, _and_ you’re grieving. And maybe I would have expected this sort of coping mechanism from… from D-dean, but I have too much respect for you, and for myself, to let myself be used as your emotional out.” He chewed on his lower lip, trying to ignore the electric hum buzzing through his body that really made it hard to say no.

Slowly Sam picked himself up from the floor, a look Harry couldn’t decipher on his face.

“Sure,” he said blankly. “I’ll just go to bed then.”

Harry crossed his arms, confused and utterly overwhelmed, but reluctantly got off the bed. He moved to leave, but paused in the doorway, peering over his shoulder as Sam got into bed as though Sam’s body might tell him what Sam wouldn’t. He sighed quietly and left.

When Sam didn’t bring it up the next day, Harry followed his lead and kept quiet.

This continued for three days, where Harry’s confusion didn’t lessen in the least, as Sam was actually obediently sleeping each night. He had no idea what was going on, but he guessed he shouldn’t question the sudden reasonable behaviour, and simply allowed himself to be glad he could get some more sleep himself.

On the fourth day Harry woke to coffee and toast on his bedside table.

“Strange,” he muttered. He rubbed his eyes, put his glasses on, and ate it anyway.

When he came downstairs, empty cup and plate in hand, he found Sam sitting at the kitchen counter, looking strangely solemn. Since they were the only people in the house, it was more than obvious that the out-of-the-blue breakfast had been provided by Sam, but why? Was it an apology?

As he rinsed his cup in the sink Harry contemplated the best way to approach the situation. Did he continue to ignore it? Silently accept the apology and move on? Or did they sit down and talk it out? What did _he_ want to do? What was Sam hoping for?

_Damn it._

Harry hung his head in defeat, fingers clutching at the edge of the counter.

“What do you want from me Sam?”

He refused to turn around, but he could pretty much imagine the kicked-puppy look that Sam was probably sending him in perfect clarity. Trust even that thought to make him a little weak in the knees, despite, or perhaps because of, _the incident._

“I’m sorry.” Sam’s voice was quiet, low. “I crossed a line, the other night, I can see that now. It was unfair of me to do that. You didn’t deserve that.”

Against the counter, Harry’s fingers started tapping agitatedly. He chewed at his lip and shook his head slightly.

“I don’t want your apology,” he confessed softly. “I just want to know what happens now.”

There was silence in the kitchen for several long moments. It was broken by the sound of Sam’s stool on the floor, and then by his soft footsteps. Harry tensed a little as he approached, but made no move to shy away. This was a conversation that needed to happen.

“Harry, I’m really, incredibly sorry if I made you uncomfortable, and I’ll admit I wasn’t exactly thinking straight, _but,_ ” Sam paused when he noticed how white-knuckled Harry’s hands were, grasping the counter as though he hoped to break it. “Just because I was a little clouded doesn’t mean I… That I…” Sam hovered awkwardly next to Harry, who still refused to look at him. He flexed his fingers, trying to get the words out. In the end he slammed his fist down on the counter, startling Harry. “I wasn’t trying to _use_ you, damnit!”

Harry stared up at him with wide eyes, his vision a little blurry as unwanted tears gathered in the corners.

“You implied some things,” Sam continued after a calming pause. “I don’t agree with your assessment. Harry, you’re my best friend. Hell, you’re probably my only friend. To you, that’s probably only proving what you already assumed, but hell, I don’t take our friendship that lightly. If I wanted meaningless sex I would’ve gone to a bar. That’s wha-what Dean would’ve done.”

They both still edged hesitantly around topics that involved Dean. It was the same now as it was four nights ago. Talking about him in this manner still felt a little wrong, like disrespecting the dead, even when it was only facts.

“Get to the point please,” Harry requested, a barely noticeable quiver in his voice. He looked resolutely at Sam’s shoulder.

“I don’t want to forget about it,” Sam blurted out in a rush. “In fact, I want to kiss you again.”

“That’s not funny,” Harry muttered after a hesitant pause. He shifted on his feet, tapping the counter twice before turning to walk away.

Sam’s arm snaked forward, grabbing Harry’s shoulder and spinning him back around, holding him in place.

“I’m not joking around,” he protested, voice a little grim. “Listen, if you really, truly, want nothing to do with me after this whole mess, then I’ll respect that. I know how to stick to boundaries. But if there’s any part of you that wants this, please, just, give it a shot.”

The hand on his shoulder gripped a little too tight. Nerves? Harry’s lips trembled. He didn’t know what to do. He’d been in love with Sam for a long time, longer than he probably cared to admit, but he’d come to terms with the fact that Sam would never look at him the same way. Sam was straight, and he graciously accepted that. Except now Sam was smashing all his excuses to pieces and everything seemed make or break all of a sudden.

A strangled sob worked its way up his throat, but Harry refused to let it out. He lifted a shaking hand and hesitantly wrapped his fingers around Sam’s wrist, not trying to remove the hand from his shoulder, but not really keeping it there either. He glanced at Sam’s face peripherally, over the top of his glasses, from the corner of his eyes.

_What do I do?_

Harry breathed out slowly, shakily. His fingers clenched reflexively around Sam’s wrist.

“I…” His voice cracked, so he stopped trying to talk. He didn’t even know what he was trying to say.

With his free hand Harry reached out, fingertips brushing against the bottom of Sam’s shirt. Sam shuffled forward a handful of centimetres, and Harry’s hand fell to his waist. He sucked in a breath and bit his lip.

Sam removed his hand from Harry’s shoulder, and gently pried his fingers from around his wrist. Instead he slowly and deliberately linked their fingers together, hands held in the air between them.

Harry smiled weakly.

His entire body was thrumming. He felt anxious and impatient and a little bit sick.

Sam’s hand was warm. It was like a beacon in the dark fog of his confusion.

“I think…” He took a deep breath and let it out again, squeezing Sam’s hand and flexing the fingers at his waist. His voice was soft when he continued, barely audible over the quiet sounds of life. “I think that I want this.”

Sam smiled, soft and sweet, and drew Harry closer to him. This time Harry went willingly.

“Thank you,” he whispered, caressing Harry’s cheek with his free hand.

Harry leaned forward on his toes, and Sam leaned down to meet him. They kissed, as soft and sweet as Sam’s smile, a gentle press of lips.

Inside his chest Harry’s heart danced to a frenzied rhythm. When they pulled away for air, he could feel Sam’s doing the same. It was relieving.

Sam wrapped his free arm around Harry’s shoulders and held him to his chest. They stayed there, embracing, in the kitchen, for a long while, before Harry glanced up, eyes ablaze with steely will.

“What happens now?” He asked, voice even and much firmer than before. A different person likely would have been offended by the tone, but Sam understood.

“That’s up to you,” Sam told him. “Like I’ve said, I’m not going to push you. Whatever you want, it’s yours.”

Harry smiled at that. A wide smile, flashing his teeth and crinkling his eyes. It felt good, because he hadn’t had all that much to smile about recently.

“One step at a time then,” he confirmed.

And finally, there was a silver lining.

**oOoOo**

It had been two months since Dean’s death, and over four weeks since Sam and Harry’s precarious start to their relationship. Harry hadn’t been expecting some sort of drastic change in Sam’s behaviour because of it, but the continued depressive slump was starting to drive him round the bend.

Yes, he knew it would take a long, long time for Sam to really, truly get over Dean’s death, but he needed to start living again, and start caring more about his own wellbeing. If having a boyfriend didn’t help, then Harry needed to start appealing to some of Sam’s other interests.

It was as he lounged in the living room one day, bemoaning Sam’s alternatingly clingy and avoidant behaviour, that the idea came to him.

Back when his magic was first revealed, everyone had been mad at him, true, but Sam had also been helplessly curious. Harry hadn’t told him nearly as much as he could have, and his lack of precision had stopped him from being demonstrative with his powers, but when he stopped to think about it there _was_ something he could easily do that might grab at Sam’s academic interest.

He threw himself off the couch and nearly ran up the stairs as plans formulated in his mind. He was going to do this, and maybe it wouldn’t help much in the long run, but just for today, he’d make Sam forget about it all.

**oOoOo**

Sam was bewildered when Harry raced into the bedroom, a veritable whirlwind. He was pulling clothes from the dresser and digging around in drawers, before eventually dumping some clothes in Sam’s lap with a firm order to “go get dressed.” Sam wasn’t sure how what Harry picked out for him was any better than what he was already wearing – except, when he paused, one leg in a fresh pair of jeans, he realised that maybe he’d slept in those clothes. Time was one of the last things he’d been keeping track of lately.

Harry was wonderful, and Sam would be forever grateful to him for not kicking him out after his disastrous approach to starting their relationship. But Sam had been indulging himself a little too much in the whole thing, letting Harry look after things and not paying attention to much of anything. He knew it was massively unfair, and whatever it was that had Harry so manic with energy all of a sudden, Sam swore he would go along with it without question.

Once he was dressed, and he’d freshened himself up a bit in the bathroom, Sam returned to find Harry practically bouncing on his heels. A fond smile lit up Sam’s face as he took in Harry’s excited form. It was nice, seeing him all bubbly like this. It also really put the whole last year into perspective, because Sam could probably count the number of times Harry had been happy with his fingers alone, and seeing this, now, he decided that Harry should always be happy. Anything else suddenly felt wrong. He wasn’t meant to harbour dark emotions.

“Okay then, spit it out. What have you decided on that has you so bubbly?”

Harry grinned at him.

“I’m taking you to Solstice Street.”

Sam blinked, eyebrows creasing in confusion.

“Solstice Street?”

But instead of an explanation Harry just put a finger to his lips. “It’s a surprise.”

Sam just laughed.

**oOoOo**

Solstice Street was way beyond anything Sam could have imagined.

When Harry had wrapped him in his arms instead of leading him out of the house Sam had started getting a little bit suspicious. Because Harry didn’t apparate just anywhere, and he normally didn’t do it at all.

But this was just incredible.

“Where even are we?” Sam asked incredulously, slowly turning on the spot as he tried to take everything in.

“I have no idea,” Harry admitted, shrugging helplessly. “I didn’t find this place by wandering around the country. I just sort of… stumbled across it. It’s this massive blip of magical energy and I had wanted to see what was causing it, so I apparated over and, well, this is what I found. Pretty cool huh?”

“Totally.” Sam came to a stop facing Harry, but couldn’t stop his gaze from darting about the place. “So this is, what, a magical shopping centre?”

Harry grabbed at his wrist and Sam allowed himself to be tugged gently down the street.

“Pretty much.” He agreed. He started gesturing towards the different buildings. “There’s a bookstore, an apothecary – that’s where they sell potions ingredients. Some clothing stores I guess – I haven’t bothered checking those out at all, I’m not quite morbidly curious enough to see if wizarding fashion here in the States is as appallingly out-of-date as it is in Britain. Oh, there’s a pet shop! Hmm, let’s see. Cauldron shop, stationary, more clothes. There’s no quidditch store here though. I’m not sure if they play quidditch in the States. It might be too risky.”

Sam only listened half-heartedly, staring a little wide-eyed at everything they passed by instead. The other people wandering Solstice Street were an eclectic bunch. From jeans and shirts like Sam himself, to crazy colours that he might have associated with the 90s, to long, dress-like cloaks. There was no rhyme or reason to any of it, and it was kind of awesome.

“Is there anything in particular you want to check out?” Harry asked eventually, jerking Sam out of his observation.

Immediately his mind jumped to the bookstore, because books were knowledge and he wanted to _know_ , but something from his people watching stuck out to him, so he asked a question instead.

“They’ve all got sticks – um, wands, right? But I’ve never seen you with one. And,” he turned around again, squinting at the shop names along the street, “there aren’t any wand stores here. What’s up with that?”

Harry sighed softly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Well, I told you all about that thing I had going with Crowley, yeah? My magic’s not, exactly, _magic_ , anymore. It doesn’t quite adhere to the same rules and restrictions anymore. So I haven’t _necessarily_ needed a wand since I got my magic back, although I wouldn’t say no to one. Back in England, there’s a wand shop in Diagon Alley – that’s in London, before you ask. Technically I could go back there and try and get a new one, but, I’m not too keen on chancing a trip back across the pond.”

Right. Personal demons and such. Sam could sympathise with that. There were places he’d rather stay away from too.

“But you want one, right? Shouldn’t you be able to get one here in America? I mean, since wands seem to be so essential to wizards they should sell them _somewhere_ , right?”

“Well,” Harry laughed. “I’ll say this for America, their ministry runs on very different standards than the one back home. Different rules, different worries – a refreshing lack of political corruption though. I asked around the first time I was here when I noticed that same thing. Turns out you have to go to the ministry to get a wand, for registration purposes and such. I suppose that’s good for keeping track of crime or something. I’m not sure. Either way, marching up to a ministry building to acquire a new wand didn’t seem too appealing, so for now I’m just dealing with things as they are.”

To be frank Sam was pretty confused, but he was fine with leaving things there.

“Okay then. In that case, can we go to the bookstore?”

Harry smiled, an unnoticed tension leaving his shoulders.

“Of course you would say that. Come on then! I need to find some good books about runic magic anyway. I’ve been meaning to experiment.”

They spent the rest of the day in Solstice Street, drifting from store to store. Sam amassed a good deal of reading material, even after Harry said he could read his old school textbooks if he wanted to. Harry grabbed himself a few books on runes. They had lunch in a café that was much nicer than the Leaky Cauldron, and ice cream later in the afternoon. Since he was there, Harry even stocked up on some potions ingredients, just in case the need arose.

All in all it was a great day, away from the sometimes stifling sense of memory that lingered in Harry’s house. They talked and laughed and smiled, and it felt like something shifted that day.

Just before heading home, they grabbed a few bottle of butterbeer, and toasted to new beginnings.

**oOoOo**

“Hey, uh, Harry, what’s uh, what’s up with the jewellery box, man?”

Sam had been scoping out Harry’s bedroom, looking for something – he hadn’t said what. So Harry was sort of surprised when he appeared in the doorway to the living room with an ornate box in his hands.

“Oh,” Harry muttered, putting aside the runic pattern he’d been trying to design. “So _that’s_ where I put them.”

Sam came to sit beside him on the couch, and handed him the box. For the life of him Harry couldn’t remember where he’d gotten the box from, but he _did_ know what he kept in it. He opened the lid, and scooped the contents into his hand.

“Rings?”

Harry nodded, slipping them both onto fingers on his right hand.

“Lordship rings.”

“Wait, _lordship?_ You’re a noble?!”

Harry laughed softly at the look on Sam’s face. He could imagine how strange that would seem – the strange magic-user with a demon for a best friend who helped fight monsters, British nobility?

“Not exactly. This one,” Harry indicated the ring on his thumb, “symbolises the head of the Potter family. The Potters were more or less purebloods up until I was born, and purebloods like titles. This one,” he indicated the other ring, “symbolises the head of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black, or something along those lines.” He shrugged helplessly. “My grandmother was a Black, but I inherited this after my godfather died – he named me his heir in his will. Otherwise the ring might have gone to one of his sisters, like Bellatrix Lestrange or Narcissa Malfoy – or rather, their husbands. Or maybe it might have gone to Draco, a school rival of mine. I’m not sure, and I’ll never know.”

“Still, head of family, doesn’t that seem a bit archaic to you?”

Harry hummed thoughtfully. “Yes, I suppose it does. Still, family heirlooms. It wouldn’t seem right to throw them away or discard them. In fact,” Harry shifted on the couch so he was facing Sam properly, “I’m glad you found them. It’s about time I stop running away from my past. And acknowledging my heritage is probably the best first step.”

“Shall I start calling you Harry Potter then?”

Harry grimaced, weakly shoving Sam in the shoulder.

“I’d rather you didn’t. I’ve gotten oddly attached to the Peverell name.”

“Are you sure, _Lord Potter?_ ” Sam teased, grinning down at him.

“Stop it,” Harry whined, but he was smiling too. “Don’t you dare tell Bobby about this or he’ll never stop taking the mickey out of me!”

“Well, I have to admit, I much prefer the thought that I’m the only one who knows about this.”

Harry tilted his head slightly, almost certain that there was some sort of implication in that which he couldn’t figure out. Sam kissed him while he was distracted.

After that Harry started wearing the rings every day, almost as a promise to himself.

**oOoOo**

Lazy mornings wrapped up in firm arms, letting the sun taunt him into wakefulness rather than an alarm, had become one of Harry’s favourite things.

So being rudely awakened by his ringtone made him pretty grumpy. Sam was a much deeper sleeper than Harry was, surprisingly enough, so regardless of which phone was ringing Harry would always answer it.

Harry stretched, reaching over to the bedside table so he could snatch the phone before it actually succeeded in waking Sam up. He regretfully twisted out of Sam’s arms, thumbing the answer button as he sat up.

“Sam’s phone,” he murmured, rubbing his eyes. “What do you want?” Only he was still half-asleep and slurring a bit so it came out more like “Whaddaya wan’?”

There was a significant pause on the other end of the line. So significant, in fact, that Harry nearly decided to just hang up on them. If they were so shocked about someone other than Sam answering the phone then surely they could ring back later.

_“… Harry?”_

Harry’s blood ran cold. He snatched up his glasses and hurriedly put them on, scrambling out of bed and down the hallway as quietly as he could. There was absolutely no way. He hadn’t heard that voice in four months. This was not happening.

Once he was in the kitchen Harry pulled the phone away from his ear, finally checking the caller ID. It was an unknown number.

“If this is some kind of sick joke,” he growled, clenching his free hand by his side. He paced agitatedly, bare feet silent on the cold floor.

_“… One time you passed out after healing a knife wound in Sam’s back. I was the only one there.”_

His breath caught in his throat. Harry choked out something unintelligible before forcing himself to stop and take a deep breath.

“Fucking Winchesters,” he said eventually. “You just can’t stay dead can you?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of Respites, but it’s not the end of the story. In a way, this story was a prequel to the story I really wanted to write – which was with the angels. But with the way I wrote this story – which was with very little planning other than the angelic end-game – there are a lot of extra things from here that I feel I need to address in the sequel, which means I have to put even more thought into the planning and writing of it than I was already going to.
> 
> The sequel is going to be called Apocalypse Daze (because it sounded cool when I thought it up ages ago and I can’t be bothered trying to come up with something better now). It’ll be a while in the making. Please be patient. That’s basically the only reason I’m doing it as a sequel rather than another arc, because I’m just not prepared to post anything yet, and might not be for quite a while.
> 
> Basically, thanks for reading, and I hope to see you all again when I eventually get to the sequel.


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